Project market

Our festival’s project market is the place to discover a wide variety of civic education projects and initiatives. Exchange ideas with fellow educators, draw inspiration from their work, and find new impulses for your own practice.

Where: Registration area at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 16 October

The image shows people from above, standing alone or in small groups forming a network, visualizes by black lines.
  • Mapping civic education in Europe & The European Responsible Leadership Network programme (ReLEAD)

  • THE CIVICS Innovation Hub

  • Leonie Sichtermann

Mapping civic education in Europe is a programme that explores non-formal and informal civic education across 31 European countries. It identifies key topics, target groups, and cooperation among civic educators, while analysing their needs to strengthen European civil society. Central to the programme is the CIVICS NETWORK MAP – an online tool featuring over 700 civic educators and fostering collaboration across the sector.

ReLEAD is a network of businesses that participate in a comprehensive online training programme to equip employees with key civic and social leadership skills. Designed for employees, the programme blends self-study, group workshops, and a practical toolbox to build skills that benefit both the workplace and society.

At our booth, we will showcase the interactive CIVICS NETWORK MAP on a screen to catch visitors’ attention, where participants can explore the MAP themselves. It’s an engaging tool designed to spark curiosity and deeper understanding. We will also feature a sample of the physical ReLEAD toolbox, one of the programme’s core components – a practical resource for civic education and civic and social leadership development.

Links:

Mapping civic education in Europe: https://mapping.thecivics.eu
ReLEAD: https://thecivics.eu/projects/relead/

Multiethnic Group of Hands Raised

Can testimony from the past help rebuild trust in the present? SHEMA Portugal, together with the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (CEAUL/ULICES), invites you to explore two powerful projects: Remembering the Past, Learning for the Future and DECONSTRUCT, both built on testimony, historical research, and media literacy.

 

At our booth, step through three hands-on stations. In “Trust in Testimony”, read and watch real accounts from USC Shoah Foundation survivors. In “Trust in Kindness”, follow a virtual walking route on your phone and discover the Lisbon sites where Portuguese people once sheltered Jewish refugees. In “Trust in Evidence”, test your instincts against real statements of Holocaust denial and distortion, then compare notes with the historical record.

 

Come away with classroom-ready resources, honest conversation, and a deeper understanding of how remembering the past can help us rebuild trust in people, facts, and democracy today.

 

Links:

SHEMA Portugal: https://shemaportugal.pt/en/

Remembering the Past, Learning for the Future: https://holocaustinportugal.letras.ulisboa.pt/pt/

DECONSTRUCT project: https://deconstruct.letras.ulisboa.pt/project/

Photo of a project stand of Movimento Transformers

What if the street became your classroom? Academia de Rua (Street Academy) turns neighbourhoods and public squares into spaces of learning, self-discovery, and civic action, using dance, sport, urban art, and music to help young people in vulnerable communities become “Transformers”: active changemakers in their own lives.

 

At our booth, add your voice to the Transformation Board, a living, co-created wall answering the question: “What talent or superpower do you have to transform your community?” Take on a flash “Test Your Talent” challenge, and scan your way into our Digital Transformer Kit for methodology guides and real testimonials from the youth we work with. Expect colour, energy, and genuine conversation, and leave having experienced, first-hand, how trust is built between young people, their communities, and their future.

Links:

Movimento Transformers: https://www.movimentotransformers.org/

Photo of a group of young students sitting around a table

What happens when teachers become changemakers? UNHCR’s Spanish Committee brings BABESA 4.7 Euskadi to the Action hub: a project training current and future educators to bring global citizenship, human rights, and the realities of forced displacement into their classrooms.

 

At our booth, step into the shoes of a student. Try out a real session from our digital toolkit, co-create a communication campaign on forced displacement in small groups, and see examples of real campaigns designed by secondary school students in the Basque Country. Built on service-learning and shaped by the voices of people with lived experience of displacement, this toolkit shows how education can be a safe, credible space for tackling even the most complex global challenges. Explore the full toolkit via QR code and join the conversation on how these tools can adapt to classrooms across Europe.

Links:

ACNUR: https://eacnur.org/es
Babesa 4.7: https://eacnur.org/es/babesa-47

Website screenshot of the KORAk app

What if young people had a clear, guided path from self-doubt to the job market? KORAK, developed by EOKINI (Ecology, Inclusion and Innovation), is a digital platform helping youth discover their potential, build essential soft skills, and connect with vetted mentors, bridging the trust gap between young people and the world of work.

At our booth, try a condensed version of our soft skills diagnostic and get your own personal growth plan on the spot. Browse our “Skill Wall” of Professional Recipes, pick a card, and complete a hands-on mini-task built around a real soft skill, from communication to problem-solving. Explore our mentor-matching directory and hear real stories of mentees and mentors connecting through the platform.

Come talk to us about the challenges young people face when entering the workforce, and how combining digital tools with human mentorship can rebuild trust in themselves, in expertise, and in the systems meant to support them.

Links:

KORAK: https://korak.lovable.app/

What if trust wasn’t something you learned about, but something you actually practised? Ubuntu Leaders Academy, run by IPAV (Instituto Padre António Vieira), brings the African philosophy of Ubuntu (“I am because you are”) to life through experiential leadership and civic education, where trust is built through relationships, not theory.

At our booth, take on the Ubuntu Trust Challenge. You’ll receive a set of relational missions built around three core values: Building Bridges, Ethics of Care, and Servant Leadership, encouraging you to strike up genuine conversations, listen with real curiosity, and perform small acts of service with fellow festival participants. Come back and add your answer to “How do we build trust?” to our growing collective installation, or leave a recorded message on the Ubuntu Phone, joining a living archive of voices reflecting on trust across cultures and contexts. Complete the challenge and take home your own Ubuntu Trust Kit to keep exploring the methodology beyond the festival.

This isn’t a booth to observe; it’s one to live. Come discover what trust feels like, one small connection at a time.

Links:

Ubuntu Leaders Academy: https://academialideresubuntu.org/en/

Visual for a project booth of Znanie Association

  • Trust, Money & Me – Interactive conversations on financial wellbeing and civic trust

  • Znanie Association / EGOterra Junior

  • Vassilena Varbonova, Petya Pavlova

What does trusting yourself with money have to do with trusting democracy? More than you might think. Trust, Money & Me, developed by Znanie Association and EGOterra Junior, explores the human side of money, our emotions, stereotypes, and conversations, and how financial confidence connects directly to civic engagement and democratic resilience.

At our booth, help build the Collective Trust Story, a co-created narrative on trust and money, one sentence at a time. Draw a Think or Try card for a reflective question or a playful mini-challenge to spark conversation, and take it with you as a conversation starter beyond the festival. Or pull a Trust Conversation prompt and join a short, facilitated discussion around questions like “What money belief did you inherit?” or “When do you trust institutions most?” Come experience how trust in ourselves can grow into trust in each other, and ultimately, trust in society.

Links:

ETC: https://etclandingoks.wixsite.com/my-site

Visual for the project MICRO*ONDE

What if trust wasn’t taught, but practised, one honest conversation at a time? MICRO*ONDE, a community organising project born in Monfalcone, Italy, brings people together in places where social bonds have weakened and formal civic spaces are missing, starting not with politics, but with creativity, personal stories, and small circles of genuine conversation.

At our booth, join a small social circle built around this year’s theme. Rather than talking about trust in the abstract, you’ll be invited to share a real moment when you felt it, lost it, or had to rebuild it, guided by our scheda libro, a simple tool that keeps circles open and conversation flowing without one voice dominating. Pick up a trust question card, add your own phrase, drawing, or thought to our growing shared display, and take home a booklet to learn more about the project behind it all.

Come talk to Margherita, Laura, and Beatrice about MICRO*ONDE, and experience first-hand how trust can be built from the ground up, one small circle at a time.

Links:

Commonground Initiatives: https://www.commongroundinitiatives.org/

What happens when a school puts children’s rights into daily practice? Between 2023 and 2026, the Alapraia School Cluster in Cascais tested a whole-school, child rights-based pilot to strengthen participation, inclusion, wellbeing and democratic culture. Student Assemblies, the CHOICE for Schools programme, child rights workshops and participatory improvement actions gave children a genuine voice, while teachers, operational assistants and school leaders were invited to rethink their own role in supporting that voice.

At our booth, explore how trust was built, tested and, at times, lost along the way. Add your thoughts to an interactive reflection wall answering “What helps children trust their school?”, and follow a visual participation pathway tracing how children’s concerns move from class assemblies to school-level decisions. Meet the people behind the pilot, hear children’s voices directly, and take away practical tools for building participation and trust in your own school community.

Come talk to Ana and Carolina about what three years of listening to children can teach us about trust in education.

Links:

DYPALL Network (Developing Youth Participation at Local Level): https://dypall.com/

Picture of the parliament

  • Comissões de Cidadãos – What if citizens wrote the policies?

  • Associação “Os 230”

  • Bruna Oliveira, João Malhadeiro

What if 230 citizens sat down and wrote public policy themselves? That is exactly what Comissões de Cidadãos does. Run by Associação “Os 230”, the project brings together 230 politically independent citizens aged 16 and over, organised into 14 committees that mirror the permanent committees of the Portuguese Parliament. Participants research issues, consult experts, debate proposals and submit them to public consultation and plenary voting, with approved policies passed on to national decision-makers. Two editions are already complete, producing 48 public policies in the first and 78 in the second, with a third now under way.

At our booth, step into the role of a citizen representative through two short simulations. Join a mini parliamentary debate on a real policy proposal, taking a position and responding to opposing views, then try a mock presentation to a “government representative”, defending and justifying your recommendation under real questions. Alongside these activities, browse visual summaries of past policies and see how citizen deliberation has translated into concrete public results.

Come talk to Bruna and João about what happens when citizens, not politicians, are given the room to govern.

Links:

Associação “Os 230”: https://www.os230.pt/comissao-dos-cidadaos/