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Introduction:
1-The
institution believes that democracy is the best system for good governance,
where the citizen can fulfill himself, practice his
sovereignty and participate in self determination in a society where they live
equally under the rule of law.
2-The
ultimate target of the institution is to contribute to the peaceful democratic
change in the Arab World, through a feasible strategy and through programs
measurable and accessible.
3- The
institution is aware that the democratic change's challenges are huge, and the
way is long hindered by many obstacles. However many peoples from East, West,
North and South have accomplished this task. Besides, our Arab nations have
started this process at different times and in different speeds. This document
is an agenda with determined objectives, means and deadline. However, this
document is not a substitute to what should be done by governments, parties and
civil society organizations in the Arab World, but a supplementary effort to
them.
4-The
plan aims as representing the democracy culture as concepts and practices
through education, media and volunteer work for the development of the
participation in public life on the local, national and state level.
5- The
actions plan start in a précise number of Arab
countries, whenever the institution finds partners from the state, private
sector or civil sector.
Strategic
goals:
1- Including
civic education in the educational program in all Arab schools and at all
levels. The program could bear this name or any other synonym such as
"citizenship" and "good governance. This step implies preparing
convenient school material and training teachers and administrative members.
2- Employing
three media, visual, listening and written, to introduce democracy's values and
behavior, in the different levels and dialects to
suit each country for one hour per week at least under the titles "life
and democracy", "accepting the other", "managing diversity"
and "solving conflicts peacefully".
3- Promoting
good governance institutions through urging for supervision and participation
starting from the street or the village and towards wider units arriving to the
nation as an entity. This implies encouraging voluntary organizations such as
civil society organizations that accomplish this task.
4- Building
database and regional and Arab knowledge related to democracy and Human Rights
with all what it implies of studies and researches in the office or on the
field. This information should be available to as much citizens, students,
journalists and decision makers as possible.
5- Enlarging
and enforcing the network of democracy and Human Rights activists since it
doubles every five years and since it is the main infrastructure for democracy.
Programs:
Civic
education: Citizenship
1- In
different periods, we found educational programs in different Arab countries
known as "civic education". These programs where taught by social
subjects teachers such as history, geography, sociology and philosophy. These
programs focused on building the state and its institutions, but it was still
limited especially when independence was still recent in many Arab countries.
But now, many decades after independence it is important to consecrate
citizenship as a group of rights and obligations that are being fixed in the
participation to the public life at a social, cultural, economic and
political level.
2- The
new thing here is by an educational program that is a simplification for the
Human Rights Declaration (1948) along with treaties and charters that were made
in the following fifty years. It is important to choose them accordingly with
the educational level such as children rights for the first stage… as
well as equivalent national legislations and laws. Children must me encouraged
to conduct small studies on the level of the family, neighbors,
friends or school to know how rights are being
respected or violated and why.
3- Another
new detail is to assign children to realize simple projects of public service
to improve the quality of life at school, house, street, village or city. This
system is called "service learning" and incites children from a young
age to voluntary work that is the main fundament of civil society.
4- Implementing
this program requires the consent of the people in charge of education: through
convincing and training teachers, preparing teaching programs and psychological
and material motives including competitions between schools and regions. It may
be convenient to start with Qatar,
then in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). And the GCC will call for the same
initiative in the next meetings for the Arab Ministers of Education or for the
Arab Organization for Culture and Science.
5- Setting
up children parliaments (6-12 years), young parliaments (13-17 years) in
specific schools to train them on democratic skills: elections, debates,
meeting management, minutes, solutions for problems and activities' programs.
Such practices should be generalized to all schools in the Arab World.
6- Setting
up youth camping for university students between 18-23 to train on democracy
skills and leadership. Those skills will be practiced within the administration
of the camping. Such activities will be in common with other non Arab students
from countries who implemented recently a democratic system such as Eastern Europe in order to exchange experiences.
7- The
institution calls the members of Arab networks who participated in the second
forum for Democracy and Reform (Doha
27-29/5/2007) and others that did not participate such as teachers' orders and
educational institutions, in order to contribute to the campaigns and to the
preparation of executive projects for civic education programs. This would be a
main criterion for the scholarships granted by the institution.
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