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Today, 31 years have passed since the breakdown of the Soviet Union, which means that the post-soviet countries became “adults”. Furthermore, a new generation grew up outside of the socialist era. Some of the countries from former Eastern bloc joined the European Union and the Eastern European and Caucasian countries also show a rapid development. Despite of the improving economy and rising living conditions, many young people are exposed to the risk of radicalisation or simply just choose to turn away from active political participation.

The memories of the socialist era are today part of the history that is living with us and surrounding us. In each of the former socialist countries we can easily find socialist buildings, squares, monuments but also people who have the first hand experiences of the longest standing totalitarian system of the 20th century.

Common people, everyday objects and spaces carry the memories of this era as do the historical institutes and museums. However, professional cultural institutions face the challenge of sparkling youth’s interest and involving them in active preservation of the lessons learned from our past.

From Central Europe to Central Asia post-socialist countries share certain collective memories connected to the socialist era. Elections, legislation, government, policing etc. meant something very different than nowadays, but meant the same for the citizens of the Soviet Union member states and Eastern bloc countries. Preservation and usage of this collective memory as an educational resource has in our opinion a potential to strengthen political participation and awareness of democratic values among young people, both on national and international level.

The CoMeDeVa project is aiming to raise civic awareness and political participation of young people, especially in the post-soviet and partner countries, but also in a broader sense all over the world.

To achieve these goals, partners will use non-formal education methods and learning by doing activities, in order to bring social and civic issues closer to youth by giving them an ‘out of school’ learning experience.

Museum education is a non-formal education methodology devoted to developing and strengthening the education role of spaces and institutions such as museums. Its main objective is to engage visitors in learning experiences to enhance their curiosity and interest in their objects and collections.

The Museum Education Program could be integrated into the curriculum of history-related classes in high schools and universities as well as to address youngsters, be they locals or tourists. The Museum Education Program provides an ‘out of school’ learning experience which helps to discover the lessons of the past and gives the motivation for building a better future.

All target groups of the project will

benefit from the Program:

The following desk research is conducted by the partners and participants in order to describe current state of affairs regarding the museum education in partner countries and selected best practices regarding the museum education in each partner country.

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