BFGtoEU provides you with the tools to teach active European citizenship to your students. It gives you all the resources to teach about and for active citizenship. You can take this to another level by combining BFGtoEU with Design for Change.

Design for Change is a programme aimed at primary level and focused on developing socially conscious and innovative projects. It helps teaching through active citizenship by getting children to develop their own projects focused on an issue they identify in their community and that they are willing to address by engaging with local stakeholders, politicians, and academics.

Why combine Design for Change and BFGtoEU?

For a simple reason: issues that exist at the local level connect with issues that are dealt with at the European level. It helps children understand that nothing is done in isolation and that many issues are also common to many countries, not just in one locality of Ireland!

To highlight this, classes who register for Design for Change take part in an event which involves presenting their work and interacting with a panel including one local/national politician, one academic, one representative of Design for Change, and one Member of the European Parliament. Children answer the panel’s questions and ask them their own questions. The fee to take part in Design for Change is €100 and is covered by BFGtoEU.

Take a look below at the three amazing projects we had in 2022/2023 which combined Design for Change and BFGtoEU and took part in our awards ceremony:

What is the project about? Boot Swap

‘We could recycle football boots and astro- turf boots. We have reduced the amount of rubbish being sent to landfill which helps the planet. Recycling boots is a sustainable activity because we reuse and recycle. Our parents are delighted to save money and the school has the benefit of a charity donation and a box of boots which are available to pupils who do not have boots or who have forgotten to bring theirs to school.’

Take a look at their project HERE.

What is it about? Building a footpath from the school to the playpark.

‘We choose to focus on trying to add more footpaths and cycle paths to our village to make it safer for everyone living in the village to get around and for children coming and going to the village playground and school.We designed posters, wrote to parents and the local council. We drew what it would be like with and without a footpaths and highlighted the safety aspect of having footpaths in our village.’

Take a look at their project HERE.

What is it about? Creating an Honesty Shop

‘By focusing on honesty we discovered that being honest improves the health of the individual and their self esteem. Our class believes that an honest community benefits the individual, the immediate and the wider community. The solution our social innovators chose to encourage honesty in our community: Open a school Honesty Shop – “Pinocchio’s”. This would sell copies,stationery and some “fun” items. Have a one off; “Lettuce Bee Honest” – Pop up food’. shop.

Take a look at their project HERE.