EVZ Foundation (Remembrance, Responsibility, Future)

In the program YOUNG PEOPLE remember the EVZ Foundation supports innovative projects in the sphere of international youth educational work, historical-political education as well as memorial site work. The projects are characterized by contemporary methods as well as innovative approaches which portray National Socialist history at historical places of National Socialist persecution and extermination, digitally or in hybrid form; they are multi-perspectival and use groundbreaking concepts and formats.

The [re]create digital history funding line focuses on digital formats that open up sites of remembrance and learning relating to National Socialist persecution and extermination for international historical-political education on a sustainable basis. With digital tools and applications, the projects further develop historical places for a low-threshold and location-independent teaching of National Socialist history in international youth exchange in a complementary way. In a participatory pilot phase, a young focus group tests the tools and applications before they are applied.

A special focus of this call for applications is on campaigning project ideas that enable young people (between 14 and 35 years of age) to shape a culture of remembrance themselves, actively and digitally.

Funding is available for projects that:

• develop target group-oriented digital formats for historical teaching for international youth encounters which combine analog and digital learning in an innovative way and provide plenty of opportunities for participation,
• (further) develop and use digital tools for international youth educational work as well as historical-political education,
• originate from the field of interactive biographies or applications of virtual reality, augmented reality, apps, social media campaigns, serious games, interactive websites as well as media stations,
• use campaigning to address the issues of historical-political education in a way that is target-group-oriented and low-threshold,
• have a pilot phase to test the developed digital tools and applications through a young focus group before implementation, visibly counter various forms of antisemitism, racism, historical revisionism and current group-focused enmity (online hate speech, Holocaust distortion, etc.),
• take the history of National Socialism, the cultures of remembrance relating to National Socialism or a place of National Socialist persecution and/or extermination as the starting point to make it possible to experience the relevance of remembrance for the reality of young people‘s lives,
• facilitate a digital culture of remembrance that is actively shaped by young people,
• ensure sustainable use of developed formats, for example by developing concepts for teaching (in the context of training or by provision of educational materials),
• ideally bring about cooperation between educational institutions and players from the civic-tech sector,
• will have developed products at the end of the project which will continue after funding and have the potential to stimulate high-profile debates, create opportunities for action, and therefore strengthen democratic values.

Funding will be provided to non-profit organizations and institutions in public or private sponsorship from all European countries as well as Israel (e.g. youth education centers, youth centers, schools, universities, memorial sites, historical learning sites, museums, associations, cultural institutions or other civil society players). Projects can be bilateral or multilateral. A maximum of four countries can take part in a project. The requirement is that a German organization is involved.

Projects are funded with what is known as shortfall funding. This means that the EVZ Foundation will cover the expenses that the grant recipient cannot finance through own fund or external funds. Funding will be provided for development costs of the digital tools and applications, travel costs, incidental travel expenses, program costs, professional fees, personnel costs, costs for disseminating and securing results as well as a lump-sum for administration costs.