This educational programme aims to deepen the reflection on the Ventotene Manifesto "For a free and united Europe" and on the main personalities behind it - Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni - to understand the birth and evolution of the concepts of the European Union and European Citizenship.
The project aims, through the didactical use of archival sources, to bring the students closer to the history of European integration by revisiting significant historical events and the role of personalities who made a significant contribution to this process. The Ventotene Manifesto "For a free and united Europe" is considered as a starting point, focusing on the peace building process. The main objective of the project is to provide young people with the tools to be able to answer the question "What does it mean to be European today?", starting from the added value of European citizenship and the rights and duties of European citizens.
Making use of the non-formal didactical approach, the analysis of primary archival sources is at the centre of this programme: the secondary school students are offered a selection of archival documents for an individual work, a work in small groups, as well as with the entire class group. During the workshops different creative languages are used (musical, bodily expression, visual).
The preparatory activities carried out in class by the students before the visit were supported by the following didactical materials, provided by the HAEU Educational Programme team:
- Didactical sheet on the Ventotene Manifesto.
- Description sheet for the narration of the story of a family object particularly significant for the students.

For the didactical activities proposed as part of this educational programme, historical sources preserved in the following HAEU fonds were used: AS, ER, SEC