CSF publication - Civil Society Forum - CEE Trust

Inspiring active citizensReshapingthequestionsSelf-confidenceLearningby doingcation we realized that in all of the cases some people usually from the Ministryof Education, said: “People in schools have to study this or that in order to begood citizens, for example you have to know how the European Union works”.We went to the children at school and just asked them: “What do you want toknow about the society?” and simply the answer was:: “What is this institutionfor, and how does it work for me personally?”. When we reshaped the questionwe realized that there is no need to activate people, they’re active, we didn’tneed to go and push them to participate in this or that but just reshaping thequestion made them active. There should be civic education, but we have tobe clear that it shouldn’t be the old way of: “let’s make a test and check thisand that”, it doesn’t work and it’s contra productive.P: I think one of the elements of education is not just the subject, but to giveself-confidence in any kind of activity. I would also be careful with this myth thatonly educated people can be very good citizens and defining what is good orbad. It’s not quite that easy, for example in Hungary there is this right-wing partywhich just got into the European Parliament, and one of their supporters is anorganization of medical doctors, which shows that well-educated people aresupporting an extreme-right party.P: My point was not that only educated peoplecan be good citizens, but my point was when youknow then you can do something with your knowledge.P: An educational psychologist says that ways toreally learn for long time are experimental andlearning by doing. Just teaching people in classroomsabout what civil society is won’t have anykind of long term impact at all, if they don’t experiencethe values of civil society. So, it should belearning by doing, active participation.Mod: How will civic activism look in the next 15 to20 years? Will it be just as it is now, or will it be different?How will it be different, will people participate more in e-governance anduse more technology or will they do it the traditional way? And where are we,the civil society organizations?The roleof civilP: I looked at the questions and I was thinking what I’d like to see and what civilsociety is the society’s role would be to make that happen. For me civic activism is peoplefacilitator engaging in their everyday like and making a difference, basically empoweredto make a difference in their own communities. The role of civil society in thatchange would be to be a facilitator in an empowering role. I would see civil societyhelping the communities get to this stage where there is this participatorydemocracy happening in their society and facilitating the process that’s whereI’d like to see us in 20 years.P: I think NGOs should also work with the public institutions to be sure that theyare open for citizens’ participation.P: The point is how to get there in the future, because the active citizens you al-44