Promoter – Centro de Cidadania Digital de Valongo
Action – Associação para a Inserção por Centros Digitais de Informação
Description – “Centro de Cidadania Digital (CCD)” is the result of a new concept of smartcities where citizens themselves, in a collaborative way, take ownership of digital tools and propose solutions for their community, making the city smarter, more human and more participatory.
CCD is a project that ensures everyone has access to digital technologies. In a school context, all children and young people create digital projects that contribute to a more innovative and motivating school for students and teachers. With regard to young people who do not work or study, CCD aims to provide digital skills, increase their civic participation, so that they discover vocations and define a life plan. As for adults, CCD increases their digital skills and, consequently, their skills for employability, entrepreneurship, civic participation and digital economy. Finally, the inclusion of seniors in CCD activities seeks to increase their civic participation, train them for the digital economy and provide active aging, promoting the participation of young people in the development of intergenerational activities.
Already in its 3rd Edition (2019/2020) and with a direct impact on around 1,800 people, CCD is prepared to welcome, for free, all citizens who want to actively participate in solving challenges related to employment, school, social and digital inclusion, with participatory democracy and with the dynamization of the municipality. Its methodology is based on the approach developed by Paulo Freire, and the action must be guided by a problem, which must be analyzed, so that an effective response can be developed. The process does not stop there and the readaptation must be constant, through the observation of the intervention. Always using technology as a means and an end, CCDV proposes that community members observe their surroundings, define the problems and work on them in order to mitigate them, thus constituting an important form of action for the various challenges that life will bring to them.