Building Back Society

The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) through a survey intends to show how students are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens based on the knowledge and understanding that the students have regarding civic and citizenship education. The last ICCS where Peru participated identified that while in some countries more than 60% of the students had scores at Levels A and B of the ICCS civic knowledge proficiency scale, in Peru, more than 60% of the students attained test scores corresponding to Level C or below 

Lack of citizenship can be seen in acts that, if isolated, may seem somehow meaningless (like throwing garbage into the street or not yielding to another car when changing lanes, recklessness by pedestrians and a long list of other examples). As time passes and students without this knowledge become adults, the problems start to become more meaningful and evident on their own (corruption, unreliability of public institutions, abusive authorities, lack of knowledge of civil rights) as it starts impacting us all to the point where it limits the formation and development of free people with democratic principles, values and a sense of belonging to a global community. 

In Peru, we let too much time go by without taking action on the signs of lack of civic/citizenship knowledge. Unfortunately, this is what statistics show in Peru today: 

• 70% of the population believe their own nationals do not fulfill the laws,  
• 80% of the population is little or not aware at all of their obligations and duties, 
• 90 % consider political parties (as a group), Congress and the Judiciary are not trustworthy 
• 90% of citizens believe that the level of corruption in the country is very high, 
• 85% of the population considers that equality before the law is little or not at all respected in the country and 
• 72% of the population considers that freedom of expression is little or not at all respected, 

Numbers don’t lie. It's time to realize that the problem has escalated too much, and immediate action must be taken. 

Our solution consists in providing educational active and collaborative spaces such as workshops or discussion tables about civic/citizenship related topics (suggested by us), where the students pick the topic/s they want to discuss. The discussion is to be guided based on stories/examples applied to the student´s reality.  The method of open table discussion is a collaborative exchange of ideas among teachers and students or among students for the purpose of furthering students' thinking, learning, problem solving, understanding, appreciation, creativity and incorporation of different points of view. 

We believe these spaces will not only promote students' critical thinking abilities, but also motivate them to be open minded respectful citizens who are capable of living in harmony and involved with society. 

Even though we are aware many countries face this same problem, we have decided to start with Peru, our own country, where, for decades, in many universities and colleges/technical institutions, extremist groups were keen enough to use the educational system as an ideological transmission belt taking advantage of traditional educational methods based on the memoristic teaching and in the authoritarian conception of the role of the teacher. 

From the more than 10MM Peruvian students attending public and private schools, university and college, our beachhead will be first time voters/young adults that are still studying (last years of school and first year of University/college), by providing them with the tools to make informed and rational decisions.

In the long run, our goal is to achieve a new generation of citizens who are aware of their obligations, respectful of laws, who respect and believe in the authority of public institutions.

Both members of our team are part of the same community we want to benefit; we are both (proud) Peruvians. We consider ourselves privileged to have received first class education and access to opportunities. We have both lived abroad and have had the opportunity to see first hand how students who benefit from proper civic and citizenship education, succeed and are the fundamental base of a responsible society. We both agree that they do so because once they finish their education they are already well rounded citizens capable of guiding their country (from within and outside political organizations). 

To understand how we can better serve our community, we have made data and user research from which we have gathered that there is a common and overwhelming feeling of lack of civic and citizenship knowledge in the population. Six out of every ten people we surveyed, see signs of this lack of knowledge almost everyday. The majority of students and teachers who were interviewed indicate that the limited civic and citizenship knowledge provided by educational institutions today is focused on the past instead of looking forward and does not provide a relevant and practical approach that makes it useful. This made us conclude that we need to refocus the way in which it is taught.

Again, our beachhead market is a certain segment of students; however, we are aware that students may not know or recognize the need of civic/citizenship education because that is the way the world was shaped as they grew up and most of us normally do not question the status quo as long as it doesn’t affect us directly. Based on that premise, we are targeting to recruit the students through their educational institutions. 

We plan to engage our target market throughout the whole process. This is a student centered approach from day one, and this is mainly why we plan to work through workshops (interactive sessions) with topics selected by them (from a broad topic list provided by us, such as obligations and rights as a citizen, basic economy for daily life, government structure, why is important to get involved in politics, taxes as an obligation and what should a citizen expect to receive from government, environmental awareness and how to contribute, etc.) Another way to engage them is through the topics; since topics are picked by them and discussion is guided based on and tailored to the students' reality, their age, geographic location and access to basic services, they will feel the relevance and impact of their participation as part of society.

We want to benefit not only from inspiration from peer groups, but also a strong networking and mentorship that can guide us in the development of the project. 

On one hand, we need help in broadening our market by reaching more educational institutions and students; we believe this should be done with the use of technology: 

• Fun fact #1: 94,3% of the homes in Lima city have a cell phone and 34,2% of the total Peruvian population access to internet through their cell phones) 
• Fun fact #2: Peru has more than 5 thousand broadcasting (radio) stations and 58.43% of Peruvian homes use radio.   

On the other hand we need guidance on how to make this project become self sustainable. We were never trained to do business or organizational finances. We need help developing a good financial model; we have ideas but we need more thorough guidance in this aspect.

Our plan is to start with private education institutions because public education is in the hands of the central government. Change within government organizations is very difficult because of bureaucracy, their inability to understand the necessity of change and because they are comfortable with the status quo. Inversely with private institutions, we can gain traction for the program because decisions can be made quickly and the program will have benefits for the public image of the participating institutions. We can start with private institutions but ultimately the goal is to get the participation of the government institutions to create more significant change to society. We need heavy artillery to confront this problem.