Jahangir's World Times First Comprehensive Magazine for students/teachers of competitive exams and general readers as well.
Globally Connected, Locally Engaged
The world is often discussed as a ‘Global Village’ in many contemporary talks and theories, but still the territories are considered divine and non-shareable asset and international borders are taken as the dead end for people, cultures are seen ethnocentrically and the geographical divide imprints its marks on the hearts of people. British Council is a UK’s international organisation, which believes that diversity is an asset not a problem, is presently working in 110 countries to bridge the gaps between cultures and create educational opportunities. It strives not only to connect the people worldwide but also to foster lasting relationships between UK and other countries by providing learning opportunities and creative ideas from UK.
Despite British Council’s all remarkable work in the fields of education, culture and development, it reckons youth development as the area which is the most important sector to work in, knowing the fact that youth is major segment of society. Youth is actually the real agent of change and it could play a pivotal role in the development of any nation. To translate this belief into action, the British Council along with her partner organisations has started the ‘Active Citizens’ programme in nearly 30 countries with the slogan ‘Globally Connected, Locally Engaged’ to promote community cohesion and improvement in community’s civic engagement and volunteering which is now going towards thematic inclusion of conflict resolution pool into the programme’s original content delivery.
In Pakistan, ‘Active Citizens’ programme is working with an outreach across the country except Gilgit-Baltistan, where it will be launched soon. This programme follows a unique model of youth development, namely ‘Learning Journey’. This journey ranges from capacity building, social action projects to policy dialogue and national to international networking. It engages youth of 18-35 age group without any discrimination on the bases of gender, education, ethnicity, language or religion. Owing to this aspect, it also engaged madaris students, special persons and transvestites as their engagement is a must to bring a real, positive and lasting change in the society.
The programme helps individuals to discover and exploit their hidden potentials for the development of their own selves and the society on the whole by taking initiatives rather than being passive and oblivious to their responsibilities. It is aimed at strengthening the fragile threads of the society and reviving the soul of the society which is humanity.
In the first stage of the programme, the participants take on a 4-day training workshop which follows a participatory model of learning. Believing in the concept of ‘Learning with Fun’ its contents are designed in an integrated way which speaks about individuals’ identity and connects it to a global citizenship in a series entitled ‘River Journey’ which comprises four different modules starting with ‘ME’ which leads to ‘ME & YOU’ this makes ‘WE TOGETHER’ and results in ‘OUR ACTIONS’. This all is further connected to its global dimension as global citizenship. ‘ME’ module talks about individual’s identity and explores the different aspects of ‘self’ as it is the initial point of societal web. This includes both the visible and hidden components of identity. This understanding of identity helps participants to unveil the concept of ‘ME & YOU’ which is basically an intercultural dialogue. This also discusses the differences between dialogue and debate and emphasises on the importance of dialogue among individuals as a process to solve the issues. Third module ‘WE TOGETHER’ refers to the concepts of society and citizenship. This part of the training helps participants to understand the society, its structure and roles and responsibilities of its members in order to make it a liveable place for all. The fourth module ‘OUR ACTIONS’ solely focuses on individual and collective responsibilities in terms of identification of the issues, project planning and implementation to address the issues along with the tools like advocacy, resource mobilisation, etc. to finally achieve the desired result. After completion of these modules, participants realise that though they are the citizens of a geographical territory and have their responsibilities to be fulfilled as citizens, they are also part of the globe.
They are the global citizens and have their responsibility to make the world peaceful and a lovely place to live not only for themselves but for all living in this world.
Article 25 A and its importance;
To inform all citisens on the role they can play to make ‘Education for All’ a reality in our lifetime.’
The next stage in this programme is the international networking where active citizens of different countries are provided with an opportunity to meet and share their community work with others in order to learn from their experiences to benefit their own efforts in their communities. These opportunities include bilateral exchanges between two countries, international study visits which gather active citizens from different countries at one place not only to share and learn through work experiences but also to learn through cultural exchange. Regional symposiums are also the part of these networking opportunities. In order to give the same flavour of networking experiences to more local active citizens, similar exchanges are organised at national level where the active citizens from all provinces gather at one place through which objective of this learning through cultural exchange and the national harmony is expected to be achieved.
In my opinion, this unique model of youth development, followed by active citizens programme, is creating a great impact on the society by engaging youth, help them understand their potential and making them realise that their small initiative could be of great impact in community cohesion, civic engagement and the uplift of the society as a whole.
