Engaging and Empowering Youth - Active Citizenship and Civic Responsibility
OYOON Group and JASMART Team
Oyoon Group and Jasmart Team are in and by themselves a living example of ‘Active Citizenship Engagement’! These young Egyptians have put the ACE concepts into vivid practice, and used them in their spectacular, ingenious work. They really have “institutionalized” the ACE Strategy!
In 1996, Jasmart began as a team of thirty-two members serving a church in Minya. When they decided not to confine their work to activities of a religious nature, they formed their own group, independent from the church. Their main goal was to work with children and youth in villages on voluntary basis using their own personal funds in addition to some money from the church and the Jesuit.
As their work thrived in rural communities, they became known to CSOs who employed them to undertake creative activities to compliment development projects. Oyoon are a group of seven friends who have known each other since childhood.
Their experience with art began with courses at the Jesuit. Soon after, they worked with Salama Moussa Foundation on reactivating the quality of art in schools using Puppet and Shadow Theater. They also assisted the foundation with a girls’ education project and simplified development concepts for children, women and older men. Later, they worked on spreading awareness of Child Rights and approached the National Council to change certain laws related to children.
In 2007, the seven friends started documenting the work of a project in an animation film. In order to sign a contract with the project, they created their own group and called it “Oyoon,” or the “eyes” that people see society with. Oyoon mainly works with children and use art to address issues like education, child and human rights. Currently, the group is working in partnership with Salama Moussa Foundation on a project called The Eyes of Youth Supportive for Change.
““How do we institutionalize our work? Well, this is it - no mystery. This is it happening right in front of you! How do we ‘practice’ the ACE concepts? This is it again! This is what young people in Egypt are doing with this work,” Darren Brown ”
Jasmart and Oyoon have been working with the ACE Team for some time. Their task was to simplify the Strategy’s entry points and concepts to appeal to young Egyptians as they are the natural and priority constituency for the promotion of Active Citizenship Engagement.
They began their work by a workshop for young members from a number of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to assist them in understanding the Strategy and expressing, in their own way, the meaning of its different components.
“Ze’rida: “Listen Mr. Ziko, I will not prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner while you watch TV, because I am exactly like you, and there is no difference between a boy and a girl”
Their facilitation approach was different and special - using photos, puppets, animation films, theatre, illustrations and other creative art work which transformed text into heartfelt liveliness.
At first, the workshop participants were very surprised at how concepts such as citizenship or human rights can be introduced through Puppet Theater. But after the script was written for a play, they discovered that this is possible using situations from real life.
“Ziko: “I now understand, this is how we are active citizens. We have to be active for our rights and responsibilities” Ze’rida: “That’s not only it Ziko; we have to work with the private and public sector too”
In addition, imaginary puppets helped in acting out situations that would have been very difficult to do in real life or with real people. “We started out by sitting with the CSOs and asking them how to begin writing a script about active citizenship. They came up with ideas and we gathered the materials and put them in a comic context relating to real life situations.”
“These young people are themselves a living example of what we are talking about; but the strategy puts these concepts and sub concepts into a paper so that it has a framework.” Naela Refaat”
“In the beginning, the concepts were very difficult for the participants and for us; but we all began to understand by relating them to practical examples in our lives.” “In our work with the ACE Team, we began by pin-pointing the main ideas in each of the three entry points: Civic Responsibility, Civic Partnerships and Civic Engagement.
We sat with the group of young workshop participants and saw how they used the camera and illustrations to convey concepts such as a snapshot of a tree that has many branches to represent partnerships and networking, or another of a lens to symbolize accountability; or yet, another of a pyramid showing how Active Citizenship Engagement is based on civic values as trust, justice, equality, tolerance and respect.”