A contest of video stories “My Competences for Democratic Culture” for school children was organised by the Council of Europe jointly with the Ministry of Education and Science, the “Ion Creanga” National Children’s Library and the National IBBY Chapter within the Project “Education for Democracy in the Republic of Moldova”.
The contest was organised for school children in grades 5 to 12 who were invited to prepare short video stories on how they apply the competences for democratic culture developed during their civic education classes in their schools and/or communities.
To help the school children better prepare the short videos, the Project organised two on-line training sessions on the techniques of preparing short videos, facilitated by professional journalists from the Documentary Films Studio “Telefilm-Chisinau”.
The 210 short videos received within the contest were assessed on the basis of the relevance of the chosen subject, creativity and accuracy, original approach and the quality of the videos. Three videos were awarded the winning first (in Russian), second (in Romanian) and third (in Romanian) places, and 15 others received diplomas of merit within an on-line award ceremony.
“We were happy to see that the participating boys and girls have addressed a variety of subjects in their videos: respect, civic mindedness, responsibility, empathy, cooperation, peaceful conflict resolution, etc. At the same time, bullying in schools and in the society seemed to be the most tackled theme, chosen by about 20% of the participants. The creativity and original approach to the subjects taken by the school children are remarkable,” said Eugen Popovici, jury member and Director at “Telefilm-Chisinau”.
The video stories contest marks the conclusion of the Council of Europe Project “Education for Democracy in the Republic of Moldova” implemented since January 2019 in close cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science and with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Over the past four years, the project has supported education decision makers, experts, teacher trainers, teachers, school directors, schools and school children implement the revised civic education subject that integrates the 20 competences of the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture. The way school children understand and apply these competences in their schools and communities, as they show it in their short video stories, is certainly one of the project’s best measures of success.
The project’s results have also been discussed in an extensive interview with Ministry officials, experts and teacher trainers and showcased within a live TV show (see in Romanian) on the Moldovan public channel.
