Our Civics Academy Project is part of the CENESA Interim Steering Committee which met during the productive, inspiring conference as well, and our team had actively participated in the recent conceptualisation and organisation of the Nairobi event. Building on the 2017 Entebbe and 2018 Johannesburg meetings, the Interim Steering Committee worked on refining the further institutionalisation of CENESA.
CENESA aims to provide a platform for civic educators to connect and foster greater collaboration across the region to address issues related to civic knowledge and motivation as well as governance. A joint CENESA and SACEC session discussed the future collaboration between these two networks.
Following a panel discussion by experts in the field of Civic Education from various countries in East and Southern Africa, participants got the opportunity to meet each other informally in an interactive session. Using a collaborative learning method, consensus was built on the common challenges that participants face in their daily work, and what value a network can add either to participants’ work in general or in response to the identified challenges specifically.
The three most prominent challenges that organisations in the field seek to address were a lack of civic motivation by civil society, state actors and other role players; limited access to civic knowledge and issues around a lack of good governance.
The conference participants agreed that the networks' value in addressing these challenges is multi-faceted, but most importantly activities should centre around sharing knowledge, skills and best practice; the coordination and collaboration of national initiatives; and engaging in joint advocacy projects. The conference participants left in high spirits, taking back new expertise and valuable connections to face their different realities.