Civics Academy Youth Dialogue Event: #ReimagineSA

The 9th of April 2016 saw the first of a series of Civics Academy Youth Dialogue events hosted at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg. Civics Academy is an online education initiative started by the Hanns Seidel Foundation in South Africa that offers free audio and visual content on important aspects of citizenship, democracy and good governance - the online platform can be found at www.civicsacademy.co.za.

The Youth Dialogue events are one of the initiatives through which Civics Academy is planning to “roll out” in the future. Using the Civics Academy content as a basis, these events provide facilitated spaces which encourage and enable young people to actively engage with and debate questions critical to South Africa’s democracy.

The first of these Dialogue events was a test run – and it was a massive success. About 100 young people who our partner organisations work with attended the event. The Nelson Mandela Foundation had recently hosted a group of young people at an event celebrating 20 years of the Constitution – the same group participated in our Dialogue Day. Other partners include Wits University, ReadersWorld/Rosa Parks Programme, Lebone II College of the Royal Bafokeng, Rosebank College, Media and Writers Firm, Action Aid, North West University, and the ASRI Future Leaders Fellowship programme.

The full day event started with a lively brainstorming session about what young people love about South Africa, and their contributions ranged from the appreciation of the diversity of cultures to the constitutional freedoms. The thoughts voiced were collected in themes, which formed the basis for the Call for Action: a commitment to create the country envisaged. For the debate, we randomly divided participants into fictitious political parties. The debate was held in the bursting Nelson Mandela exhibition area just outside the icon’s old office. The question: “Does the Constitution hinder or foster civil liberties” allowed for a passionate and articulate discussion.

There was a tremendous appetite amongst the participants for these kinds of events. The inclusion of prominent South African personalities also helped to raise the status. Famous radio talk show host and author JJ Tabane, veteran activist politician Dr Mamphela Ramphele and Shaka Sisulu, well known and outspoken grandson of Walter Sisulu, were part of the event. The impressive panel of judges presiding over the debate included Luvuyo Mandela, Ranjeni Munusamy, Panashe Chigumadzi and Shaeera Khalla. 

Civics Academy is proud to officially partner with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and is excited about co-facilitating more Youth Dialogue events of this nature in the future. Civics Academy is working on collaborating with other partners who can use Civics Academy in their work with youth.  It is also planning to involve young people in the production and distribution of Civics Academy content.