July 2015 to October 2017
This program is part of civil society efforts to promote civic Education. Since Tunisia is going through a phase of political, social and cultural changes, “Young City-Zen” responds to a critical need for active and promising citizenship. It is implemented with the support of The National Endowment for Democracy during a two years’ timeline, from July 2015 to October 2017 at six Higher Education institutions from both of The University of Gafsa and The University of Jendouba.
Young City-ZEN program was designed to involve several stakeholders in a societal dialogue to teach university students the principles of the civic education adapted to the post-revolution Tunisian context where Democracy, Freedom and Citizenship are being
established as values of the Tunisian society. Through the various efforts of civil society, local authorities, education staff, and national and international experts, “Young City-Zen” program consolidated the learning of civic education at the Tunisian University and empowered civil society institutions committed to the promotion of democracy and citizenship through civic education.
A manual entitled “Effective Civic Education Guide” was issued by Impact Foundation based on a national study. It comprises seven main chapters: Human Rights, Elections, Democracy, Citizenship, Public Policies, Participation in Public Life, and Decentralization. This manual was used as a teaching material during a three-month training cycle. Around 250 students aged between 18 and 25 years old, from the different institutions benefitted of the training. The manual is made available to be shared with civil society organization. Impact Foundation offered a TOT session to SCO representatives from three governorates: Gafsa, Jendouba and Kef and assistance to use the toolkit in the framework of their projects and actions. Twelve Associations were mentored during the last year.
Impact is working on an electronic platform for enhancing Civic Education in Universities and among students. We intend also to launch Young City-Zen Junior in secondary schools in response to special request from Educational staff and schools’ representatives. We would like to enhance the sphere of our intervention through working with young students aged between 14 and 18 years old. Civic education is one of the themes that we would like to work on with younger generations. We intend to implement civic education programs in primary schools in order to promote good citizenship principles amongst them and to produce recommendations for policy makers based on a scientific and educational study measuring the program impact on the knowledge and skills of children.
