Civic Action Now in Cyprus

Civic Action Now in Cyprus

Contract Title Civic Action Now in Cyprus Categories Peace, Youth Host Organization Future Worlds Center Funding Agency vvv Contract Number 11_ACF CY_FWC Start Date 01 07, 2022 End Date 31 12, 2023 Total Cost US $100,000 Regions Served Island-wide Links Tech4Peace Page in FWpedia

Part of a series documented by Tech4Peace

The Civic Action Now in Cyprus (CAN-CY), was a project implemented by Future Worlds Center and the Centre for Sustainable Peace and Democratic Development (SeeD). It aspired to improve inclusion and meaningful participation of youth in socio-political and economic life.

The project implementation consisted of 7 phases:

1. An online campaign run on Pusula/Ππούσουλας for 3 months inviting youth across the island to share their ideas on:
   1. How to overcome socio-political and economic obstacles inhibiting them from being active citizens (e.g., equal access to services, practising human rights, growth opportunities, economic challenges etc.)
   2. Interventions/actions (e.g. policies, regulations, reforms, etc.), which if adopted, could contribute towards addressing these obstacles.
2. The top 50 most supported ideas on Pusula/Ππούσουλας were transferred to the IdeaPrism App through which their authors were supported to turn their ideas into S.M.A.R.T.er proposals (Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Relevant, Time-bounded).
3. The general public was invited to evaluate ideas for Impact, Feasibility, and Probability of happening without intervention, by scoring ideas from 1-5 through Idea Prism. The scores allowed the organizers to identify the top 25 proposals that were most promising to act upon.
4. The authors of the top 25 proposals were subsequently invited to participate in a face-to-face event based on a Structured Democratic Dialogue Process (SDDP) to structure their proposals into an Influence Map. The event was supposed to be broadcasted live on social media to allow the general public to ask questions or post comments, but this was not possible at the end.
5. The results of phases 3 and 4 of the project were integrated to produce an effective action-road-map. The action-road-map was widely disseminated to generate public awareness and mobilize youth action. F2F and online meetings were subsequently organized to discuss how to take concrete steps towards the implementation of the action-road-map and identify the relevant policy makers for its implementation.
6. Mentorship and life-skills trainings was delivered to support those interested in taking the lead to lobby towards implementation of the action-road-map.
7. All contributors and the wider public were invited to evaluate the Project’s activities. The survey results and project deliverables were consolidated into a Policy Recommendation Report and disseminated to identified target groups.

Overall, the project aspired to introduce participants to the power of SDDP, social media, and especially Facebook and Youtube, as well as encourage and train them to use new Apps developed by the consortium, such as Concertina, ISM Parallel, and IdeaPrism.

Objective

The overall objective of CAN-CY was to improve inclusion and meaningful participation of youth (18-30 age group) in socio-political and economic life. It aimed to contribute to the selected Outcome 2 of the Programme “Vulnerable groups empowered” based on the following Theory of Change:

IF young people (18-30 age group) from all communities benefit from a transparent idea generating process through which they will have an open dialogue and critical consideration regarding societal obstacles inhibiting them from being active citizens; THEN disengagement from civic matters will be replaced by a substantiated vision of a transparent, functioning and trusting society in which young people are empowered to connect with each other and take action to achieve common goals and come up with an action-road-map that entails SMART (Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Relevant, Time-bounded) call-to-actions for policy makers (e.g. policies, regulations, reforms, etc.) to enhance their civic participation; BECAUSE young people (CSOs, informal groups, volunteers) will become part of a collective decision-making process, through which they will convert their potential into social impact by taking steps towards implementation of the action-road-map agreed by all.

Through online and offline activity outreach, at least 3,000 youth were informed about the novel digital tools for inclusion. At least 200 (possibly 1000+) young people island-wide, who shared their ideas via Pusula/Ππούσουλας Platform and Idea Prism were hopefully empowered. The use of digital tools will ensure outreach to youth in underserved geographic areas across the island. The automatic translation functionality of the Pusula/Ππούσουλας Platform (in ENG, GR and TR) and the presence of SeeD’s networks in both communities supported bicommunal cooperation and foster intercultural dialogue, to interact with each other, providing actionable and scalable solutions. Echoing UNICEF recommendations on providing civic education opportunities for increasing youth participation, CAN-CY has also contributed to mandatory Outcome 3 “Enhanced capacity and sustainability of civil society (organisations and the sector)” by providing mentorship and life-skills trainings. Following successful generation of the action-road-map, CAN-CY will provide mentorship and life-skills trainings to at least 14 vulnerable young people from both communities (G/C and T/C) (Output 2.1) and representatives from at least 4 CSOs (ideally 10 CSOs in total with 5 CSOs from each community) and informal groups from both G/C and T/C communities (Output 3.1) who commit to advocate for achieving change through the roadmap’s implementation; thus networking and building partnerships between them (Output 3.2).