TGS 18+ is the new educational project by TGS Eurogroup meant to be a European Citizenship education journey. It takes the shape of study trips to Brussels, offering the opportunity for meetings and exchanges with European institutions.
The 18+ Project first edition was back in 2015. It is named after the age group it is dedicated to. Students, leaders and TGS volunteers who have just become 18 are welcome to join as they approach the chance to vote for the European Parliament for the first time.
The interest in the project and enrolments have been above expectations; the educational project already is a scheduled appointment in the Association calendar. TGS is now extending this very project to schools as well as to cooperating entities.
The reason behind a journey
The trip is meant to allow young people to get to know European institutions and to raise their awareness of the European citizenship. These objectives are enlisted in TGS Articles of Association as well, as essential features of the tourist and cultural proposals and of its educational mission:
«TGS identifies itself with a form of tourism that favours the call to the common European cultural roots and awareness of social, religious and spiritual traditions. A kind of tourism that favours the pleasure of spending time together, the development of common interests and language, that helps overcome loneliness and rejects cultural standardization. A type of tourism that reintroduces protagonism and the assumption of responsibilities. A style of tourism that favours the exchange of ideas, dialogue, mutual knowledge, unity and solidarity among people».
«TGS promotes an active form of tourism by means of an educational journey understood as aquisition and improvement of knowledge, group experience and personal growth, non-elitist but essential experience even in the use of services, wish to detect common grounds and differences between populations, overcoming of barriers and prejudices».