From May 20-22 a capacity training for new EU Crash Course trainers took place in Baku, Azerbaijan. The project is implemented as a cooperation of the Understanding Europe team at the Schwarzkopf Foundation together with European Youth Parliament Azerbaijan in order to establish a basic understanding of European politics amongst pupils in the Caucasus region to enable them to have a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of the EU and its neigbour countries.
In the training, the participants from EYP Azerbaijan had the opportunity to simulate and discuss the roles of both participants and trainers. The focus was set on different techniques of moderation, as well as on handling controversies and stereotyping in classrooms. From an organisational perspective, questions on the realisation of the project including communication with schools, the availability of trainers and a schedule for the translation of the existing material into Azerbaijani were tackled. Last but not least, the training gave room for vivid debates related to Azerbaijan’s role in the EU, European geography, the significance of religion, different understandings of democracy on the European continent and the Turkish-European relations.
