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Czech education projects earn EU awards

Golden Stars recognize impact of Stalinism on the expanded European Union

By Bibiána Duhárová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
November 19th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Figeľ says the award seeks to humanize the EU and strengthen its social integrity.
BRUSSELS
Two Czech projects have won prestigious Golden Stars at the European Union’s annual “Europe for Citizens Forum,” promoting active European citizenship and shared identity.
Among the 12 winning projects Europe-wide, the two Czech Golden Stars both came in the “Remembrance” category, which seeks to highlight history and, in the case of both projects, teach lessons to youth to prevent a repeat of past mistakes.
The nongovernmental organization Docs, Youth and Society with their project Daughters of the Enemy won for its audiovisual account of 36 women whose parents were persecuted parents during the communist era and a detailed overview of how Stalinism impacted descendants of political prisoners in 1950s Czechoslovakia.
The second Golden Star awarded to Czechs went to the organization The Forgotten Ones and its project The Neighbors Who Disappeared — A Tribute to the Child Holocaust Victims.
“Projects that were awarded Golden Stars demonstrate that Europe has been constructed for its citizens and it is Europe’s citizens who will make a difference. The EU is about more than just business and economy; we need to develop its human side more,” said Ján Figeľ, European commissioner for education, training, culture and youth. “I am convinced that more civic participation will take Europe farther and develop it into something ever more human.”
The Daughters of the Enemy project is the first EU project to contemplate on the subject of Stalinist era. “Before the EU was enlarged in 2004, discussions were led mostly on the topic of Nazism and the Holocaust. Even though the Europe for Citizens Program existed for long before, it did not include the remembrance component for the victims of Stalinism,” explains Figeľ. “These testimonies form richer experiences of European history and should serve to prevent the temptations of Nazism or Stalinism for younger generations that no longer remember the past.”
The founder of the NGO Docs, Youth and Society and a project manager for Daughters of the Enemy, Zuzana Dražilová came up with an idea after meeting Jana Švehlová, who, in her doctorate dissertation titled “Enemies’ Daughters,” analyzed the psychological impacts of totalitarian regimes on individuals. During her research, Švehlová found and gathered living daughters of political prisoners, before taking Dražilová to one of their meetings.
“At the meeting I decided I would propose a grant for them with the intention to put together audiovisual testimonies as educational material for schools,” Dražilová recalls. The project ran for a year and was shot by FAMU film school students with the use of modern technology in order to produce archives for schools and make it part of education.
Educating the EU
In preparing the project, Dražilová most of all remembers major difficulties in finding a financial partner. “ČEZ, banks and insurance companies all refused to give us money. There were times I thought to myself it was pointless and that we would never finalize it.”   
A total of 12 projects were awarded Golden Stars Nov. 13. Entries from three categories — Town Twinning, Civil Society and Remembrance — share the common goal of bringing people together under the European integration umbrella.
Europe for Citizens financially supports projects initiated at the local level. In 2008 alone, the program mobilized close to 1 million direct participants, working to educate European citizens about cultural differences and similarities. At more than 1,200 events, people from almost 4,000 towns met and discussed how common European values affect their everyday lives.
The “Remembrance” projects seek to create a shared sense of European history. “We were genuinely surprised how much a project like this could bring to young people today,” said Marta Vančurová, project manager of The Neighbors Who Disappeared, a traveling exhibit on Holocaust victims.
The European Commission initially evaluated 130 projects, out of which 24 were presented to the jury headed by Hannu Takkula, member of the European Parliament and rapporteur for the Europe for Citizens Program. “The work of the jury was characterized by our shared desire to select projects which combined very concrete actions with issues of fundamental importance, such as inter-cultural dialogue and our basic values. It was exactly in this spirit that we included three examples from the Remembrance projects,” Takkula said.         
For the winners, the Golden Stars offered some sense of vindication. “I felt that I am here not only representing Czech Republic, but partially the victims of the 1950s, their descendants and other generations to come. It was almost a quarter-million people alone in today’s Czech Republic and Slovakia who were affected. Whole families were socially and psychologically harmed by Stalinism, including those who were not imprisoned,” said Dražilová. “I am glad young people were involved, because it makes no sense to speak about the past without it being meaningful to the present. When I first addressed Daughters, I did not suspect that I will be witness to a project dedicated to the daughters of political prisoners receiving such a prestigious award,” said Švehlová.
 

Bibiána Duhárová can be reached at bduharova@praguepost.com


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