#GenerazioneEU: Time for a Video Lesson

On Tuesday, 23 February the first of ten video lessons of #GenerazioneEU will be online to tell high school students all about Europe and its institutions. Ten topics, twenty professors and guests and an agile format of 15 minutes per episode. The videos will be posted online on a weekly basis (the last one on April 27) on the website of the Bocconi Chair in European Studies funded by the Boroli Foundation (which coordinates the courses) and on the La Repubblica@Scuola website. #GenerazioneEU is the initiative promoted by Bocconi University and the newspaper Repubblica, with the collaboration of the official representations in Italy of the European Commission and the European Parliament. 
 
First appointment on February 23, to uncover the identity profile of EU institutions. Eleanor Spaventa, Professor of European Law at Bocconi, and her guest Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament's Constitutional Affairs Committee, will explain how the complex European machinery works. The next one is schedule for March 2, ahead of the key date of March 8, with its lesson dedicated to EU’s commitment to fight gender inequality, to then gradually address various issues such as the EU budget, the power of intervention of institutions, the challenge of climate change, the role in regulating digital platforms, the Single Market, programs to support younger generations, and the EU approach to privacy and competition policy. 
 
If they so wish, students who follow the video course can take a test to evaluate their level of learning about the topics covered. Passing the test gives you the right to 5 PCTO credits. 
 
"The teenagers who hear adults talk about the European Union may have the impression that, depending on the moment, Europe either looks like a stingy mother or a cash dispenser", says Gianmarco Ottaviano, Chair in European Studies at Bocconi and protagonist of two of the ten episodes, explaining the spirit of the initiative. "In reality the EU is neither, but rather the difficult realization of an ambitious project of peace and prosperity that European citizens have been implementing after centuries of internecine wars". 
 
The #GenerazioneEU initiative, of which this video course is part, is promoted precisely to make Italian students become aware of what it means to be European citizens today, members of a community that embraces some 450 million people from 26 different states.  
 
For this reason, #GenerazioneEU, officially launched last December with an online talk, is made up of several components: in addition to the video lessons, there is a writing contest where young people have to draft a letter to Europe, a newspaper article on the EU, or an Instagram campaign about the EU (deadline is March 15, here you can find the info on the contest and its rules). As for the course, participation in the contest can also give the right to PCTO credits (25). 
 
Finally, #GenerazioneEU is also an Instagram account, @generazioneEU, where the initiative is recounted step by step as it unfolds.