Regional seminar: Civic education for youth in the Mediterranean

28 and 29 June 2018, Barcelona. Ideaborn, in collaboration with the UfM Secretariat, organise on 28-29 June 2018 in Barcelona a regional Seminar on “Civic Education for Youth in the Mediterranean” with the objective to discuss the central role of civic education in the current emerging challenges in the region, such as the prevention of violence, radicalisation and the promotion of gender equality. The Seminar will be held under the framework of the UfM labelled regional project “Forming Responsible Citizens” (FRC) which has been implemented since 2015 in Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon with the financial support of the governments of Norway and Monaco.

The project Forming Responsible Citizens aims at improving the skills of children and youth to fully exercise the rights, duties, and responsibilities that correspond to their age, in line with Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In practical terms, this means to lead youth to learn by practicing the exercise of self-awareness, self and mutual respect and understanding, dialogue, conflict management, respect for gender equality, and tolerance for sexual, cultural and religious diversity at school and outside the school. FRC’s innovative approach based on participatory teaching and experiential learning is based on the assumption that learning and practising responsibilities at an early age shapes responsible and reasoned citizenship and contributes to professional and social success in adult life. And this success greatly reduces the likelihood of exclusion and radicalisation, while strengthening the role of schools as vehicles for the prevention of youth violence —especially violence against women, discrimination being one of the many forms of this violence.

The two-day event will be the platform to further discuss the critical role of civic values education in forming responsible and engaged youth. The Seminar will offer the opportunity to share experiences and good practices and to advocate for civic education policies in the Mediterranean region as a central tool toward engaged and responsible citizens. It will also be the occasion to present the main achievements and recommendations emerged from the FRC project and explore measures to further sustain the project outcomes and results.

The programme of the Seminar responds to three objectives, namely:

• To share challenges and recommendations regarding civic education programmes implementation across the Euro-Mediterranean region and mainstream best practices
• To explore sustainable avenues for capacity building and the contribution of different stakeholders
• To investigate regional perspectives on prevention of youth radicalisation through civic education