Radio România Internațional

Tag: involvement

  • How we can educate children for their civic involvement

    How we can educate children for their civic involvement

    Since 2014, the 11even Association
    has been annually staging the ‘Creators of Future’ camp as part of a
    programme targeting students with educational performances who may also want to
    get involved civically. Since its first edition, less significant in terms of
    participants and, until recently, for the 2023 edition of the camp, ‘Creators
    of Future’ has been gaining ground, yet several aspects have remained constant:
    50 high-schoolers are selected annually from the winners in various national
    and international Olympiads to spend a week, as part of a summer school where
    they are being challenged by experts in an attempt to make them bring something
    new to society. The camp is located near Cluj-Napoca, and the selection
    criteria takes into account the students’ interests and abilities in certain
    fields of activity, as Tudor Vasiliu, the initiator of the aforementioned
    programme has told us.

    Tudor Vasiliu:

    We have four application domains: one is educational,
    focusing on everything related to school events, such as Olympiads, national
    and international school contests. Then there is a second one, which is the
    sports domain, where we are focusing on sports performances. Then there is the
    cultural domain, which comprises everything related to performance in art and
    culture and I am talking here about high-school students who may have written a
    book, who are painting or have obtained good results in art contests. Last but
    not least is the field of school leadership, which is targeting the students
    involved in various volunteering activities and are doing great things for
    society.

    The underlying idea for this
    initiative was that the young people with performances in education are also most
    capable of obtaining civic performances.

    Tudor
    Vasiliu:

    We are trying to offer them as many
    prospects as possible in a large number of domains through our invitees. We are
    trying to invite people who have studied or who achieved success abroad and
    then returned to Romania to bring their contribution and make a change here.
    Looking back now, out of roughly 900 high-school students who have participated
    in our programme along the years, I believe that 50%-60% are studying or have
    studied in prestigious universities abroad. And somehow, we are trying to bring
    these young people back to Romania on medium and long term. We are encouraging
    them to study abroad if they believe this will contribute to their professional
    development. But we underline the need for them to come back to Romania and
    make a change here as well.

    Adding
    to that, here are a few examples of topics and guests that were seminal for the
    September 2023 edition of the Creators of Future camp.

    Tudor Vasiliu:

    We had a wide range of topics for
    debate. For instance, we invited Mihnea Măruță, a journalist
    and the author of a recently-released volume focusing on digital identity, on
    how this aspect takes its toll on our being, and on how we relate to the social
    networks. We also invited Codruța Simina, a journalist focusing on the topic of
    disinformation and that of the fake news. We also invited Răzvan Petri, and MA
    student at King’s College in England who is working on a very interesting
    project in Romania, basically targeting teenagers and dealing with politics.
    With him too, we had a debate on the usefulness of politics and on how those
    youngsters relate to the political sphere. We also invited the physician Mihai
    Copăceanu, who organized a debate on drugs, we also invited the rector of Babeș-Bolyai
    University, Daniel David, who gave a talk on the new Romania. We staged a
    seminar offered by Răzvan Cherecheș, focusing on innovation since he is a
    Public Health professor with the University in Cluj-Napoca and we also had two
    guests who are active on Tik-Tok, yet they try to generate a change for the
    better, conveying a positive message on this platform. One of them is a legal
    educator, the other one has developed his own business using this platform.

    Although
    youngsters are sometimes perceived as being indifferent to political and civic
    involvement, the high school students who convened as part of the Creators of Future program have invalidated such an opinion.

    Tudor Vasiliu:

    Their desire to get involved is a very strong one. Actually,
    after every edition we in turn seek to get them involved, throughout the
    schoolyear, in various activities. As regards politics, they may not be that
    keen ion that, at their age. However, when it comes to civic involvement, they
    really are anxious to get involved there. We even had, as part of the previous
    editions, contests on projects that were subsequently financed and implemented.
    As an outcome of this year’s edition as well, we want that, together with some
    of them, we want to stage, in their communities of origin, several small-scale
    events so they can invite guests who dares them to change, at once bringing
    those people begore a younger audience.

    Moreover,
    Tudor Vasiliu also noticed that, among other things, Romania’s high-school
    students are interested in how they can study abroad, they are also interested
    in the online ideas and contents and, last but not the least, they also have
    ecological preoccupations.




  • Funky Citizens

    Funky Citizens

    Funky Citizens is a meeting place
    for the citizens who will not settle for the status quo, but understand the
    role they play in a democracy and often get involved in decision-making
    processes. The organisation’s strongest weapons are the initiatives that use
    technology, data and communication-based advocacy, and civic education. The NGO
    already has notable experience in encouraging the citizens who dream of an
    urban space with a coherent idea of development, in which citizens get involved
    in defining their shared space and improving their life standards.


    Elena Calistru, a member of the
    European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), and the president and co-founder
    of the organisation, tells us how it all started:


    Elena Calistru: Around
    2011 – 2012 we realised that Romania lacked a movement or organisation that
    made citizen involvement desirable for people, especially in areas that are
    rather difficult to understand. We started with a project where we monitored
    the spending of public funds, we monitored the national budget actually, which
    we tried to make comprehensible for citizens. We worked on the assumption that
    people would like to get involved in public life, but that they often find this
    kind of information very difficult to understand, and that some effort is required
    to explain to them certain basic aspects, like how legislation works, how
    institutions work and so on. This is how Funky Citizens was born.


    We asked Elena Calistru whether it
    was easy to find members:


    Elena Calistru: Obviously
    there were not a lot of citizens willing to get involved, and as an
    organisation we didn’t imagine we will get millions of people checking on local
    budgets. But we do believe that, if we get involved, things will change, and
    judging by the response we have seen since our establishment in 2012, I would
    say there are more and more people interested in what happens at local and
    national level and more and more people are getting involved in our activities,
    are donating funds, are reading our surveys.


    How can a citizen get involved in
    public life?


    Elena Calistru: Most
    often, the first step is to get informed. It sounds like a cliché, but it is
    true. Information is power, information is easier nowadays thanks to the
    internet and finding out how we can contact our MP or mayor is just a click
    away. But we tell people that citizen involvement is like sports: there are
    several levels. Ideally, we should all exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. In
    terms of citizenship, this means checking from time to time what the mayor has
    done, what parliament has done, what the government has done, and stay up to
    date on events. And obviously go vote. Then, just like in sports, there is the
    option of exercising weekly, maybe take up a sport, or go cycling. This would
    translate into signing a petition, for example, or writing to our MPs on a
    topic of interest. And the third level, the ‘professional athlete’ so to say,
    is running a marathon. This may mean joining a citizen intervention
    organisation, or challenging the local budget. We have these rights, as
    citizens.


    The number of participants in Funky
    Citizens projects varies, our guest explained, and during election periods it
    may reach thousands of volunteers. Elena Calistru, the president and co-founder
    of the organisation, also spoke about some of its most recent initiatives:


    Elena Calistru: In the
    years to come we will have 2 major challenges: one of them is to expand our
    work at local level. This is something we are already doing, we started last
    year, we are trying to go to local communities and organise training sessions
    on how local budgets are made, on how citizens can get involved, and we work
    with partner journalists. The second challenge has to do with our presence in
    the European Economic and Social Committee and other bodies, our organisation
    has been working for a while now in international projects, especially in
    Central and Eastern Europe, I have been a member of the Committee since last
    year. We are trying to make the voice of several Romanian NGOs better heard in European
    institutions.


    Whether we speak about European
    funds for national or local projects, when we look at the efficiency of
    spending in Romania the common element is a lack of impact. The main reasons
    for that are the absence of mechanisms to identify long-term development needs,
    prioritising financial needs based on political criteria rather than actual
    needs, and the waste of public money through corruption, fraud or poor
    management. (A.M.P.)

  • Environmental sustainability projects awarded in Bucharest

    Environmental sustainability projects awarded in Bucharest


    “It is the 12th hour. If not now, never. If not us, nobody.” This is the imperative motto of the first edition of the Green Gala Report held early this year. The tone is set by the sense of urgency and the environmental problems of which we are all aware. The online publication Green Report has been notifying these problems for the past 15 years, ever since its establishment. But its online pages speak not only of these problems, but also put forth solutions, most of them identified by environmental watchdogs and some of them even by businesses.



    In fact, the Green Report awards granted at the recent gala draw attention precisely to the way in which environmental problems start being tackled through sustainable economic projects in Romania. The awarded projects belong to NGOs, to business organisations and local authorities. Raluca Fișer, the president of Green Revolution Association, which initiated the Green Report, told us more about the criteria for selecting these projects:



    Raluca Fișer: “We awarded 12 prizes, because we had 12 categories, but in the circular economy category we had 2 winners, a project put forth by a company and another one by an NGO with excellent projects in the field of circular economy. As many as 94 projects were selected in the 12 categories, and we had 54 companies and associations taking part. We were quite happy with the quality and diversity of the participating projects, which is a great thing for an event at its first edition. And we believe it is a great sign that people are becoming aware that sustainable economy is an integral part of any business plan and of any strategic approach of a market.”



    The Green Report Gala also showcased the development of environmental thinking in Romania during these past 15 years.



    Raluca Fișer: “Environment protection is no longer a topic for green activism alone, it has grown into a global emergency which informs the European and global agenda. We set out to show that circular economy and sustainable development are part and parcel of the business environment. An environment-friendly attitude is not only about everybody eating lettuce and walking around in forests, it also involves technology and efficiency in using our limited resources. We strongly believe that sustainable development must be integrated in any business, because it provides countless competitive advantages. And first of all, a company manager must be aware of their responsibility towards the community in which they work. Community involvement, one way or another, and the care for the environment are today so important that, if overlooked, they may push an enterprise into bankruptcy.”



    The star of the Green Report Gala was an organisation called “Workshops without borders,” which won 2 awards, in the categories “Excellence in Circular Economy” with its “educlick” platform, and “Excellence in Agri-Food” for its “bio&co” social farm, and a nomination in a 3rd category. The programme director of the “Workshops without borders” association, Lorita Constantinescu, told us more about the winning projects:



    Lorita Constantinescu: “We won the circular economy category with a project called EduClick. It is a platform to collect e-waste and repair computers, which we donate to schools in underprivileged areas which have no access to funding for their IT labs. Since the pandemic broke out, we have been sending computers to schools, which gave them to children who did not own a computer so that they could study online. In fact, the social component is the most important element for our association. Our social mission is to help re-include vulnerable people in the labour market. “Workshops without borders” was set up in 2008 and EduClick was the first workshop that we started. We basically created the conditions for vulnerable people to return to an active, employed life. We hire them for our workshops and for 2 years they take part in a job shadowing programme during which they learn the skills for a specific job. And when they complete the programme we help them find a job.”



    This is not the only project through which “Workshops without Borders” proved that environmental protection goes hand in hand with social involvement. In the category “Excellence in Environmental Innovation,” the organisation received a nomination for its Remesh project, in which plastic banners are turned into accessories such as bags and purses. Just like with EduClick, workers from underprivileged backgrounds are employed in this social enterprise with environmental ramifications.



    Lorita Constantinescu: “This is the 3rd workshop of our association: a social farm, where we grow vegetables and sell them in a farm-to-fork system. A few years ago, we set out to help vulnerable people to get employment in rural areas as well. While our first 2 projects, EduClick and Remesh, were located in Bucharest, we tried to do something for people in rural communities as well, so we went to the village of Ciocănari, some 30 km from Bucharest. We leased a plot of land and hired people from the vulnerable community in the village. It took around 3 years for us to get the organic farming certificate, and today we grow 80 vegetable varieties. We sell them to consumers in a direct subscription system.”



    The farm in Ciocănari currently has just over 90 subscribers, but the organisation hopes the model will be replicated by as many enterprises as possible. (A.M.P.)