Introduction to Mayuge Community House:

Mayuge Community House is as the title suggests a house located in Budhebera village/ward, in Mayuge Town Council, in the rural district of Mayuge in Easter Uganda. The house built between 2006 and 2007, belongs to the Civil Connections founders Andrew Julius Bende and Stine Eilers, where the two lived for a couple of years before moving to Denmark in late 2009. During the couple’s stay in Uganda, their home was home to community development activists, community groups, RISE soccer, and netball league youngsters, as well as community organizing committees that flooded in for meetings, discussions, advice, or just conversations about development and community life.

The house became an automatic extension to the RISE Uganda (the NGO they worked with) office housed in the RISE Board Chairperson – Dr. Wilson Mwanja’s office lets about half a kilometer closer to the center of town. The RISE office and the house then became joint hosts to among many others:

• A meeting and co-working space for eleven (11) community groups from across the Mayuge district.
• A meeting space/office for the RISE Beneficiary Committee – which was a second policy board made of representatives from the community groups RISE worked with, to ensure contextualized community interventions and proper feed-ins for RISE programming.
• Meeting space and home to 12 soccer clubs participating in the RISE soccer league.
• A meeting space and home to 6 girls’ netball clubs participating in the RISE soccer league.
• Home to over 30 local and international volunteers that supported RISE work.
• The place where the first community-run computer center/internet access was set up.
• The home to Mayuge Fair Trade – a crafts and tailoring project set up as an income-generating initiative for the sustainability of RISE community groups and community work.
• A youth-friendly safe space, where young people could meet up and talk about life under the guidance of qualified adults, without being weighed down by rules and routines.
• A known space where everyone was welcome – and no one was rejected.

When Andrew and Stine left for Denmark in late 2009, the house was put up for rent so that it could fetch income for some of the community initiatives they and other community colleagues had started, and this worked well until the end of 2017 when the house remained vacant for a longer period. Already by 2017, Andrew and Stine started reminiscing the role the house had played as a space for the community, and as months and then years went on without it being occupied or put to any lucrative use, this thought of bringing it back to its former role grew stronger.

With the advent of Covid-19, and the strong effects this had on local communities – especially semi-urban ones. And especially so, in the communities that RISE Uganda had worked with in the past, a decision was reached to re-establish the house as a community space/hub – where such groups and the rejuvenated Mayuge sports league could find affordable space for their further growth. With this, the house has now been named – Mayuge Community House, a name that embodies its purpose and value in the community.

Mayuge Community House – a space for personal, social, pedagogical, and entrepreneurship growth.

In its new form, the house has several ambitions, including being a space for mobilizing the community and a space to gather. A platform/reference point for people-organizing, co-creation, and joint growth. A space for building cooperation among different community actors – strengthening existing networks and facilitating new and especially unusual networks and co-creation. Facilitating unity towards a common cause at a time to reduce fragmentation of ideas and efforts. A ground for being aware and facilitating cultural synthesis – as a way of contextual self-reflection and growth. Finally, the community house being a hub for various groups and walks of daily life presents a very interesting space for capturing community life and more so – the reflective and critical perceptions that the community forms itself, and that will be valuable in contributing knowledge and research on our concept of ‘Development from the Grassroots’.

Concrete projects running in 2023 and the key stakeholders already involved:

Already in January 2023, the house has the following concrete projects running:

1. We have started a community library or call it a book hub/knowledge center. The idea is to have an easy-to-access knowledge place, that promotes literacy and supports correct information as well as academic achievement in an already marginalized community. The library already has over 2000 books and novels stocked, and the ambition is to equip it with several copies of the various Uganda National Curriculum for primary and secondary school by mid-2023.
2. The house is now the main office and meeting place for the Mayuge RISE sports league. This means it is a host of up to 540 young people across 2023.
3. The house is the home/meeting space/office for the Mayuge Beneficiary Committee – a 24-person group of community groups and sports club leaders that meet regularly to discuss different projects and the future of their groups. These are core to the functioning and ideas of the house.
4. By mid-2023, the house will be home to a schools-library beneficiary committee, that will be charged with designing how the schools in surrounding areas could utilize and fairly access the library resources. We are targeting 14 schools within the vicinity to start with.

Below we zero in on the library and knowledge project to give you a deeper dive into what will happen.

The Mayuge Community House is a core space for developing, facilitating, and encouraging learning, correct information, and pedagogical methodologies and tools development.

Learning and life education are relevant components for any community’s continuous development and for every age group. It is part of the Community House’s aspiration to contribute to the community and citizens’ motivation and desire to learn throughout life. Mainstream education subjects and knowledge, everyday information and news, culture, nature, community knowledge, and many others lie within the frame of education and life learning. Therefore, our ambition and resolve to create a space where such knowledge – books, novels, curricula, and all forms of literature and information sources can be found.

And this learning should not only be accepted in the limited form but contribute to comprehensive critical learning and further knowledge co-creation and development. The Community House shall take up the frameworks and terms of learning, knowledge development, co-creation, etc., in their widest meaning for example – instead of just education we will aim at making a framework for life education/learning because such wide scale/full circle learning is centrally important for developing and facilitating sustainable community growth. For an individual community citizen, education and life learning are important for their development throughout life, which if done properly contributes to robustness and life thriving/well-being.

There also needs to be established new or extended existing collaborations for the strengthening of children’s and the entire community’s possibilities for education and life learning throughout life. Collaboration with other local actors for example – schools and other learning centers, civil society organizations, government departments, etc. will give the CH the possibility to reach both young and community other segments in their ambition to foster life learning.

Specific areas of engagement include:

Establishing a community library that fosters reading and learning to read, stocks knowledge, and is accessible to all.

• Fostering reading. Reading as a component of education, life learning, and information access is a central part of the foundation for stimulating curiosity, desire for reading, and gaining access to written knowledge. The desire and the ability to read go hand in hand, and to be able to develop this combination, we need spaces/facilitative spaces and dedicated facilitators that continuously have their focus on facilitating and developing good reading skills/competencies and the desire to read. This is one of the central aspects that the library and the house shall facilitate in developing.
• Access to knowledge – both educational and informative. One of the key impediments to developing the desire to read and for the students to effectively compete with their better-equipped counterparts is the absence of what to read – literature, and written information. This is also one of the biggest factors in relation to the spread of hindering of false information and knowledge. The library will be stocked with both the national reading/study curriculum as well as other forms of literature to facilitate access to this.

Run community mobilization activities for learning within communities – call it a mobile library.

Setting up a stationed community house and library in so vast communities as rural Uganda and other parts of the world find themselves in is not enough. The Community House will act as an epicenter, from which we will facilitate the same activities and services here available to be extended to other communities through mobile modalities for example – day trips to different communities, mobile library van, mobile community teachers, as well as brokering partnerships with other actors in different communities (e.g., schools and other learning centers) to be hosts to some of the manageable activities. This could for example be mini libraries and computer spaces.

Life-long learning structured courses that are defined by community themes and other inspirations.

We envision that while the formal education system and other learning providers avail different possibilities for learning, there remain segments of the community that will benefit from a space that facilitates processes for developing context-specific – needs-based learning modules developed in collaboration with the different community segments.

Alongside these is the ambition of the community house to in a context-aware mode introduce what Paulo Freire called Problem-posing education in the form of philosophical and cultural analysis of the local community’s life and the building expanded awareness of what people’s choices and actions and foundations for such are, and what other possibilities are within their reach in the hunt for self-empowerment and development.

Providing literature in all forms accessible – especially in context-supportive forms.

In continuation with the development of the community library and initiatives to provide information, the ambition with this resolution is that we will focus on exploring and using new methods, platforms, and collaborations in delivering varied literature that answer to the needs of the community learners. These for example include but are not limited to – audiobooks, podcasts, documentaries, guided YouTube, online learning, collaborations with spaces like Coursera, etc., e-books, and connecting with mega spaces.

Supporting the grounding of the UN sustainability agenda.

The Community House’s ambition to build sustainable communities and development gains a lot of boost and guidance from the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which we find to give an all-encompassing framework. Our work regarding the UN SDGs along with others revolves around strengthening the local community’s knowledge and possibilities to work with the SDGs, and actions that contribute to the changes that the SDGs strive to bring about.

Conclusion:

While 2022 was a planning and designing year, we see 2023 as the year we go into real action with the house and the communities that call it their safe space. The house is now active, and the final touches on expanding it for large-scale use have started – where we are boasting of a small community conference room to give us a chance for our communities to gather in large numbers. And the beneficiary committee and the house management team are also planning an official launch in June 2023. We are looking forward to many years of Development from the Grassroots action over the years. And it is not late to join in.

Sincerely,

Andrew Julius Bende

The post Starting and growing a community reflective space – the case of Mayuge Community House. appeared first on .

Introduction:

The RISE Mayuge Sports League is as of January 2023 a football (soccer) and Netball sports tournament running twice every year with each round lasting 6 months. The tournament involves eighteen sports teams including – twelve (12) football and six (6) netball clubs spread across the rural central section of the Mayuge district located in Eastern Uganda, which lies about 130 kilometers from Kampala. Each of these clubs is comprised of a minimum of 30 players/members, which gives the league a total player population of around 540 youths between 12 and 30 years, and at least 54 managers and trainers. Community-wise, the league has a spectating rate (people that follow closely, watch, and cheer the teams up) of at least 2800 closely connected community members per month. And, in one way or other has impacted its close to 250,000 community population in areas surrounding central Mayuge.

Now running into its fourth round (Jan 2023), the league has the following major objectives:

1. To provide a set of accessible leisure sports activities for youths during their free time.
2. To draw youths away from destructive behavior to more engaging peer-run alternatives.
3. To promote the talents of youth in Mayuge within the sports field.
4. To provide space for coming together by building common linkages and networking.
5. The league acts as a mobilization platform for talking about community and youth issues.

Background:

In August 2020, right at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic closures and lockdowns in Uganda, Samuel Magumba a former volunteer at RISE Uganda where he worked with Andrew Julius Bende, reached out to the latter proposing the rejuvenation of what was earlier called the RISE Soccer League. By May 2020, Sam could reveal that with all young people out of school and present on the streets in the rural town council, the level of redundancy and no meaningful engaging activity for this population was a recipe for some real social challenges.

Already, there were clear indications of rising substance abuse, and social crime as young people devised ways to feed themselves and live through the lockdown and unconstructive gang/group activities. Girls were most at risk. The number of teenage marriages was on the rise, credited mainly to the rise in teenage pregnancies and consequently forced marriages of pregnant teens. The school closure also meant that education aspirations and or skills development was on hold, youth mobilization, mentoring and guidance systems were down, and the isolation caused by quarantines and social distancing was only adding more stress to already distraught communities – especially the youth.

The league thus re-started as a counter to a downward spiral on the social front, and hopefully, a mitigation to some of the challenges communities, and especially youths were facing.

Achievements so far:

It is a little over two years now that the current phase of this sports social mobilization has run, and the results and enthusiasm created in the communities are unimaginable. Below are some of the achievements listed during our most recent reflections on 11^th January 2023.

Community mobilization wise:

1. Starting with 8 soccer teams in August 2020, now the league is home to 18 clubs (12 soccer and 6 netball). And five other soccer clubs remain on the waiting list to join the league. These have not been admitted yet because the sustainable league resource level currently only permits 12 soccer clubs.
2. As mentioned earlier, the league is a mobilization and activity platform for at least 540 players, and 2800 spectators, and has a social influence on at least 250,000 people in its catchment.
3. The league is now home to 6 netball teams – championing girls’ sports (mobilizing girls and women into sports) in a community that is not keen on this. As we start the 4^th round, girls are already asking for a women’s football/soccer league in the near future.
4. At our last meeting, it was clear to experience that the league is a platform for discussing other community development issues. Managers and captains attending the meeting talk of social projects, savings culture development, the need to partner with other institutions and develop sponsorships and scholarships for further education, as well as infusing discipline in players.
5. Several community leaders, here including – the Mayuge District Youth Councilor who attended the most recent trophy giving on 27^th December 2022, the district education and sports office, Mayuge District Football Association (MDFA) officials, Busoga Kingdom sports officials, etc. attest to the value the league is creating and sustaining towards sports development and youth engagement in the district and region at large.
6. The league has created an opportunity for the youth in creating a platform for advocacy for service delivery through the program of the youth parliament which goes on air on the local radio station every Friday influencing service delivery to the community, influence decision-making, and institutional strengthening.
7. The league has also created an atmosphere of soccer beyond the field of play by creating awareness of environmental conservation, health, and education.

Sports and skills development-wise:

1. The league acts as a platform for players/young people to showcase their talents in soccer and netball and this has paved way for some players to be scouted to other leagues. Notably, at least 30% of the current league players are also playing in different FUFA divisional tournaments that lay the ground for entry into the National Premier League.
2. Over 50% of the players fielded in the Busoga Clans tournament for the clans close to Mayuge are RISE league players. This also goes for that neighbouring districts are hiring players from the league to play for teams outside Mayuge.
3. Over 70% of the teams fielded by different schools in Mayuge taking place in the post-primary football tournament (an inter-school tournament) are players from the RISE soccer league.
4. Some go directly to the Primer league. For example, three players have been spotted from Mayuge Rise Youth League and further undergone trials in the Uganda Premier teams of Busoga United and BIDCO Uganda Limited FC (BUL).
5. One of the Mayuge Rise Youth Soccer League team coaches (Afani Ikoba) was appointed to the technical team of Busoga United as a fitness coach.
6. On the netball front, a combined team from Mayuge joined a regional league in Jinja at the end of September 2022, here this team ended as number 2 – winning a special price, as well as 4 players attaining bursaries to freely study in schools in Jinja while they develop their skills.
7. There are at least 28 bursaries offered to league players across different Mayuge Secondary schools, thanks to the identification and the need for these talents in the schools.
8. In June 2022, a league select team was mobilized and pitched against the FUFA Ex-players (old players that played for the National Team and major league teams) that were touring the country to support the development of football. Although the RISE league team lost 1-2, playing with their idols and these legends sent a clear motivation to the young players in Mayuge.
9. The netball league is motivating and creating girls’ and women’s talents in a community not well-supplied with such mobilization and opportunities.

Economic wise:

1. All the league teams have as of th3 3^rd round started micro-projects and gained small-scale sponsorships to help sustain their sports activities. Notably, PRIMA FC has started producing detergents as an avenue. Boda Boda FC has united with motorcycle taxi drivers as their sponsors. Katwe and Giri Giri have started joint community gardening. While other teams have decided that each player contributes 100 UGx (25 Danish Øre) every week to a savings fund that will be utilized to develop their team.
2. The league employs three coordinators at the local coordinating NGO The Hope Alive Initiative (THAI), and this has now been the case for the past three years, creating a stable income stream for these, as well as building their skills in sports management and coordination.
3. The league hires at least 10 referees and linesmen every weekend, each being paid at least 10,000 UGx (20 DKK), meaning that each of these earns at least 40,000 UGx (80 DKK) per month, thus gaining a little but sustainable income.
4. Several community members have started setting up selling/marketing stands at pitches on matchdays. People are selling water, refreshments, snacks, bananas, etc. This makes the league economically meaningful and contributary to the general community.
5. The league now hires a commentator on major matches (semi-finals and finals) giving these a job. For the record, the first commentator was hired by local radio to commentate matches, and the second is being hired by all kinds of leagues and tournaments to commentate matches.
6. The economic impact of the bursaries offered by schools both in Mayuge and out, as well as sponsorships – although not defined is an impact that the league never imagined at the start.

Consolidating these achievements and plans to strengthen the league further:

As we enter into the 4^th round (4^th year) of the league, the test period is over. Now we want to develop the league to a level that deepens these achievements in the lives of the players and teams involved, as well as multiply them to a larger community level.

The following are the plans that were discussed and passed at our annual coordination and managers reflection and planning meeting held on the 11^th of January 2023 in Mayuge, Uganda.

• Supporting The Hope Alive Initiative (THAI) with a sustainable office:

The coordinating partner (THAI) has been renting an office for their operations. As of the start of 2023, THAI has been offered free office space in the Civil Connections-supported Mayuge Community House (Andrew’s house in Mayuge is being turned into a community house). This will lessen the economic burden of THAI and increase their possibility to effectively run the league.

The house will also operate as a meeting/convening space for the sports clubs, where the plan is for this to turn into a youth-friendly center – with youth support and building amenities.

• Finding production means for the league teams – buying a piece of land for agriculture projects:

Over the year 2022, Civil Connections has been saving up funds under a Community Impact Fund, and as of the end of 2022, this fund accumulated 65,000 DKK. The league coordination has now identified a 6-acre piece of land costing 120,000 DKK, and Civil Connections has decided to start buying this land. Our projects indicate that we will have gathered another 60,000 DKK by mid-2023 to cover this purchase.

The plan with the piece of land of that the 12 teams will each be offered ½ an acre to start an agricultural project and hold on to this over the next 3 years. Across this time, they will be officered capacitation and training, support, inputs where possible, and mentoring, to ensure that their projects succeed and that they generate sustainable resources for their clubs. The capacitation and coordination will also span other areas of both organizational and individual development.

• Increasing networking and partnerships opportunities for larger-scale benefits

We have across the past three seasons tested and identified that going into networks, as well as the teams being into networks with each other brings huge benefits. We want to consolidate this by intentionally increasing networking, joint activities, learning, training, etc.

Although we have been careful opening the league to external networks, we will in 2023 and beyond look into and test out sustainable partnerships from both wider Uganda and abroad, to see how these can contribute to the sustainable growth of the league. In 2023, we will start intentioned scouting of clubs in Denmark where Civil Connections is headquartered, as well as trainers and other technical people that can be supportive of the league.

• Developing a directed proposal to CISU

Finally, knowing that Civil Connections’ main funder is CISU and that CISU’s strategic support lies within the field of the league, we will 2023 delve into a CISU-funded grant to support some of the components that increase the league’s sustainability and achievements.

Conclusion:

First of all, we are looking forward to a great 2023 season.

When we started football, and later-on sports activities in Mayuge in the 2008 – 2009 season, we were positively energized by the energies and dedication we saw rise up from day to day and the amount of support the community gave to us. Christian Berthelsen – the Danish volunteer that championed the first tournament and later leagues can indeed attest to the energies these 12 – 20-year-old young people exhibited, as they ran kilometer after kilometer in training sessions, fought tooth and nail to win their matches, and yet remained friends and community champions for development locally.

Across the 2 – 3 years that followed, we saw over 10,000 young people and community members engage with the league. We started agriculture and livelihood activities within the league and surrounding communities. Groups started thinking about sustainability – some went into crafts making, some young people wanted to be musicians and we encouraged them the try. One good one was with his stage name SHY clearly destined. Years later, he had a hit or two on the radio and our gratitude to him was for sure high. Many years later, as we recounted at our meeting on the 11^th of January 2023, league cadres include headmasters, political leaders, national and regional referees, managers and trainers in big clubs, businesspeople, and semi-professional players across many bogger teams. The league has been a real boost to our local community.

The resumption of the league some years after slumber (2020), and its test over the past 3 years gives us a platform for – this time to grow it in a more sustainable way and change the Mayuge terrain of sports as well as local social economics for the better of the people here. The start has been great, the results humbling, our feeling privileged, and our enthusiasm high. It is now anyone would want to join this journey – later will be too late.

Looking very much forward,

Andrew Julius Bende.

The post What has Sports got to do with it – Update on Mayuge Sports League appeared first on .

By Andrew Julius Bende – Daily Leader – Civil Connections – www.civilconnections.org

With contributions from:

• Jesper Alstrøm – Director – SDG World – sdgworld.org
• Jens Larsen – Direct – True Friends Industries/Co-founder – True Storytelling Institute – https://truestorytelling.org/about/founders/

Dear reader,

To start off this little write-up or blog as one would rather call it, allow me to set a few reflection questions to ponder as you read the rest of the gather-up. Or maybe, take a minute or two to reflect on them before you read the rest – the latter is more rewarding I would argue, but you decide.

Here we go.

• When is a word a buzzword?
• What do we honestly mean when we state our missions, visions, values, and goals?
• Do we really mean them and live the values we load into them, or are they just for fashion?
• Do we give enough rigor to the words – values – actions interplay in our strategies/work?
• Beyond the secretariat, what place do the rest of our stakeholders take in our strategic processes? And implementation and reflection underway? Are we accountable to them?
• How do we mobilise and engage the communities around us in our work?
• What becomes of the story we find in the community before our project story?
• Who owns the story of what we do? Who is the storyteller? and whose story is the most vital?

These are questions randomly derived from engagements and strategic dialogues within development work and the way we work with communities or set our goals. They are in no way specific – rather quite open, and intentionally so because their purpose is to tincture reflection, and not to be answered in a flash. There is no wrong answer by the way, as long as you have the conviction that your way creates a real impact for your organization and the different stakeholders you work with – and especially so those that look up to you for your support/services.

But these questions are also symptomatic to our field as an NGO – or call it the development work field because I am sure it is not the first time you have stumbled over them or at least been tasked in one or another conference or workshop, or an article or even a development book to ponder precisely the same.

These same questions and many more not taken here for fear of bombarding you, are also the foundation and the guiding flags for our recently launched project – TELL-TO-ACT or TELL2ACT, whose funds were granted to us at the beginning of June 2022 by Globalt Fokus – Denmark, under their Capacity Building modality. The objective of the project is to support the development of value clarification around organizational strategies and the way we engage our communities in these, and it is a 5-partner project running for 8 months (read about the project here.

Our motivation for launching such a project:

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), experts, staff, and volunteers in development work know that good intentions and innovative projects are not enough if we are to succeed with our projects and make a difference in the world. It is our ability to deal with complexity; build bridges of understanding across borders and cultures; the ability to create ownership and motivation among our partners, followers, employees, and all relevant stakeholders that is centrally/all-important (CISU, 2022).

Research from among others, consultancy Mckinsey points out that 70% of implementation plans in organizations fail. This is due, among other things, to the lack of involvement of all relevant stakeholders, where often the strategy is planned by a small group without the involvement of especially the grassroots. Another reason is that those involved find it difficult to see the meaning of the strategy or project, which commonly relates to failure to find common value for the work we are involved in. And finally, it can be difficult to understand the strategy because it is communicated unclearly and far from reality. For example, NGOs must continuously decide on many buzzwords and concepts, which can be difficult to translate and use concretely. As a result, energy, human and financial resources are wasted.

Effective implementation is complex and there are no simple solutions, but if we work to continuously develop concrete and useful tools that qualify the implementation work, there is much to be gained in terms of cooperation/collaborations/partnerships and finances/resources. Storytelling and dialogue methods play a decisive role here.

The project puts useful building blocks in place using storytelling, and protreptic dialogue:

Let us start with storytelling:

Research (Professor David Boje) shows that storytelling is one of the most effective methods for communicating, creating/mobilizing followers, developing and implementing strategies, etc., because stories are the way we communicate and recognize our contexts and lives. In addition, storytelling can create understanding across cultures, political attitudes, and ethnicity. For example, we know from other research (Princeton University) that storytelling helps to overcome resistance; that it creates trust and loyalty, and neurologically the same centers in the brain are activated when we hear a story as if we were experiencing the situation in reality.

There is a lot of knowledge and inspiration to be found in indigenous people’s storytelling (Cajete, Native Science), which focuses on building communities and long-term sustainable development in society and among people. In his book “True Storytelling – Seven Principles for an Ethical and Sustainable Change-Management Strategy”, Jens Larsen reflects on the need to think about storytelling as not just an act of telling and hearing stories, but as a wholistic approach to discovering the ethical grounds for our engagement in our work and the people we work with, by being both true/ethical to who we are, and what the contexts we work in really call for, but also making space for all stories around us/other stakeholder voices.

Based on his work and studies of native storytelling, Jens’ true storytelling model seven principles include, 1. You yourself must be true/ethical and prepare the energy and effort for a sustainable future, 2. True storytelling makes spaces that respect the stories already there, 3. You must create stories with a clear plot, creating direction and helping people prioritize, 4. You must consider timing (own note: both from a Kronos as well as Kairos perspective because these are fundamental in facilitating us to harness the right energy for what we do), 5. You must be able to help yours and other stories on their way and be open to experimenting with new inputs and ideas, 6. You must consider staging (own note: setting a conducive and supportive context for the story), including scenography and artifacts, 7. You must reflect on the stories and how they create value. These set the tone for our project’s journey with storytelling towards ethically mobilizing communities towards our missions and thereby creating ownership and authenticity of our work along the way.

And what is protreptic:

In addition to storytelling, and in recognition of/connection with the jungle of concepts and values that NGOs are presented with today, another effective tool/model central to our project is the dialogue form Protreptic, which focuses on clarifying concepts and values and creating common value-based understanding. It can be, for example, buzzwords such as sustainability, regenerative management, and co-creation, but also values such as justice, equality, freedom, responsibility, trust, and solidarity, which must be the foundation of and for the collaboration internally and externally among partners, organizations, and projects.

Protreptics, which means turning the individual, the organization, and society towards the essential and ethical, has roots in Ancient Greece and the philosopher Aristotle. As a form of dialogue, Protreptic has been revitalized by philosopher and professor emeritus at CBS Ole Fogh Kirkeby. Protreptic is a tool that can help us achieve a greater and more nuanced understanding of the concepts we work with so that they become the glue that binds us together and from which we can act. Questions can be, for example: “Why is the concept essential for life & development work?” What is the opposite of the term? What human qualities are required to live up to the concept? Etc.

Finally, on dialogue the connecting glue:

Our project’s central component is the ambition to facilitate true dialogue among organizational and project stakeholdership by using storytelling as a method of mobilization and communication. On top of protreptic as a tool for dialogue about the principles in our work, and what values these carry. But what is dialogue? Or for that sake true dialogue?

Let us borrow a quote from Paulo Freire’s ‘Pedagogy of the oppressed’, to offer a start definition for dialogue. That “… dialogue as a human phenomenon, (is based on) something which is the essence of dialogue itself: the word. But the word is more than just an instrument that makes dialogue possible; accordingly, we must seek its constitutive elements. Within the word, we find two dimensions, reflection, and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed – even in part – the other immediately suffers” (Freire, 1993:60).

According to Freire and many likeminded theorists, thinkers, sociologists, anthropologists, and academics, when we say words or for that sake talks to each other, this is a mere presentation of processes or clouds of thoughts that have already happened in our minds without a presence in physical space, but which gain form or physical existence when they are spoken. In this sense, the words we let out are reflective of what our minds are uptaken with, and in this way a presentation of our reflection on the world or context in which we find ourselves – and by this giving it form, so those we are in interaction with can gain access to it for their own interaction with it and in that way be part of what Freire calls “naming the world” or simply said, giving definition to what and how we are experiencing our context at all times, and creating a shared sense of what the world is and the place of the self/ourselves within the world[1].

For Freire, dialogue or word is also fundamentally for the intention of not only ‘naming the world’ but for causing action – facilitating us to act within our world/context, because once we have named it, the world then communicates to us with what and how we need to do in it. So, for Freire, the word is only complete and beneficial to the world when we both send out our reflections and act upon them within the world we have created. But Freire cautions that the word for word’s sake does not lead to actions – it is only the true word that creates action, because it is only a true word that is constitutive of the true world/context we find ourselves in, and thus a world we can act in/interact with. To give us a concrete illustration of this, let me paraphrase Freire as follows…

He suggested that “Human existence cannot be Silent, nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words, with which men and women transform the world” (Ibid:61). … An unauthentic word – a false nonrepresentative of truth and reality, is a word deprived of its dimension of action and reflection. This word suffers because it does not lead to authentic action in the world, or for that sake a true naming of the world. This word is then “changed into idle chatter, into verbalism, into an alienated and alienating “blah”. It becomes an empty word… On the other hand, if action is emphasized exclusively, to the detriment of reflection, the word is converted into activism. The latter—action for action’s sake—negates the true praxis and makes dialogue impossible (Ibid:61).

Another factor in Freire’s framework of dialogue is that it has to take place on equal terms for those involved in it – all must have the right and opportunity to say the true word or name the world for that sake. To Freire, “… while to say the true word… is to transform the world, saying that word is not the privilege of some few persons, but the right of everyone. Consequently, no one can say a true word alone – nor can she say it for another, in a prescriptive act which robs others of their words” (Ibid:61). This unequal right and access to the word – or naming of the world cannot qualify as dialogue according to Freire, it just ends up in a ‘prescription’ of the world for others, which in the end sums up as what he calls a “blah”.

Our project borrows inspirations from Freire’s reflections above in understanding true dialogue.

In summary, our project can be framed as follows:

TELL-TO-ACT dialogue concept combines – TRUE STORYTELLING – as a tool/method for ethically mobilizing and creating commitment within and towards our organizations and projects. And PROTREPTIC DIALOGUE – as a tool for searching for meaning and values in the terms/words we use in our work. Where the two translate into – value-based strategies and how we ethically mobilize and create commitment among our communities around this, towards equal co-creation in our work.

Our combination of true storytelling and protreptic dialogue in this project is also an ambition to co-create preconditions and usable frameworks for NGOs and other institutions/actors in development work to ethically reflect on their role and their ambitions in facilitating development through their strategies. True storytelling through its seven principles offers its power to create room for all involved to come up with their story based on an ethical foundation and their context no matter what it is, and in respect of other stories in the contexts we work in and accepting them as central in the co-creative process, we have embarked on. Protreptic on the other hand facilitates a process to clarify the value of the terminologies, language, ambitions, etc. that we work with on an everyday basis for the sake of continuously reminding us of what we say and if that is what we want to mean.

And, although it is quite an ambitious work we have embarked on, it is a work in progress – our aim and hope are to create dynamic frameworks that tincture continuous reflection and improvement of our praxis over time.

The project partners include the following:

• Civil Connections Community Foundation – civilconnections.org
• SDG World – sdgworld.org
• 100% for Børnene – 100%.org
• Alternative To Separation (ATOS) – alternativestoseparation.org
• Early Care International (ECI) – earlycareinternational.dk

Read more about the project here: https://civilconnections.org/tell2act/

[1] https://teachingempathyinstitute.org/2017/05/10/naming-the-world/

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Join us to congratulate our new members to the Executive Board, as well as bid them welcome to the new term of work 2022 – 2023.

By the constitution, Civil Connections’ highest policy organ is the Executive Board. This is a 5 members body that is elected by the general assembly every year, after which the board constitutes into functional roles to support the organization’s smooth running until the next general assembly and board election.

Following our annual assembly for 2021 held on the 21^st of April 2022, where two board positions were up for election, there came some changes to the board we saw in the 2020 – 2021 period, both letting go of some old faces and bringing new faces to the forefront.

Andrew Julius Bende who was the Board Chairperson and at the same time served as the Daily Leader of the secretariat chose to step out of the board, to give more space for independent and objective work, which he suggests the coming period in the organization’s growth requires. But the board will anyway not miss him that much, as by organizational structuring the Daily Leader and another member of the secretariate – most preferred the staff representative is required to attend board meetings for orientation on the organization’s work, as well as supporting the board’s policy process. Here Andrew also mentions – given that he has such a strong forum to input into the board processes on a more subjective level, it is only healthy for the organization that the Daily Leader does not maintain a voting right.

Andrew’s stepping out of the board created space for a place for a new member, giving Martina Popadakova a former board substitute member and a long-time close associate and occasional blogger for the organization the chance to get into the mainstream board. Another member on reelection was Stine Eilers who maintained her position after successful reelection. And, as the constitution also guides, the organization shall also always identify at least one and a maximum of two Board Substitutes that should be ready to take on Board roles should one of the board members be hindered in continuing their work. The election of the two fell on Emil Persson as the first substitute and Emmanuel Kitamirike as the second.

Three members of the 2020 – 2021 board were not on election namely, Rita Tisdall the former Vice Chairperson, Rebecca Maria Campbell the former Treasurer, and Keith Gondwe an ordinary board member.

With the election settled and the ongoing members confirming their enthusiasm to continue serving the organization the members below are currently the board members and constituted as follows:

Board members 2022 – 2023

	Rita Tisdall – Chairperson of the Board – elected until 2023 Rita continues into her third term as a member of the Board of Civil Connections. Over the past two terms, Rita has served as the Vice Chairperson. She has long experience as a DANIDA consultant both in Denmark and as a stationed representative in Asia and Africa. The Daily Leaders of another NGO Alternative To Separation (ATOS) working on the protection of family and children’s rights to stay together, among many other Danish CSOs support.
	Stine Eilers – Vice Chairperson of the Board – elected until 2024 Stine holds a master’s in Social Entrepreneurship and Management and a bachelor’s in International Social Work. Within this field, Stine’s engagement in Denmark has spanned over starting and being part of boards of NGOs, working with the government as a Social Worker, as well as long work and experience with children’s rights – especially around autism and disability. Stine has been part of the founding of CCCF for which she has a strong passion.
	Rebecca Maria Campbell – Treasurer – elected until 2023 Rebecca Maria Campbell comes with experience in mobilizing volunteers and the local community around among others within the migration, inclusion, and integration space. She also has wide experience within the Danish social work sector, as well as long experience working within the NGO space. Educated in Development and International Relations, and Global Refugee studies, Rebecca has over the past two terms served as the Treasurer, a role she continues with.
	Keith Gondwe – Ordinary Board Member – elected until 2023 Keith Gondwe is trained in Communication and Game media development from the IT University in Copenhagen Denmark. His background in communication and media design, combined with his knowledge of Southern Africa and underlying development themes makes Keith a special candidate for our Board. Keith is also working on themes of effective migrant inclusion in Denmark and has been a board member for the past two terms.
	Martina Popadakova – Ordinary Board member – elected until 2024 Martina and Civil Connections have been collaborating over the past many years, with her founded movement and blog – Empowerment Journeys being one of the first partner entities in CCCF’s journey with girls’ rights aspects. On top of occasionally blogging for CCCF, Martina has acted as a substitute board member over the past 2 years, and now brings this experience and her passion for development to full board membership.

Board Substitutes 2022 – 2023

1. Emil Persson – from Inspinest Ghana
2. Emmanuel Kitamirike – from Public Policy Institute Uganda

The board constitution meeting took place on the 14^th of June 2022, setting in process official board work.

We wish the new board success in their upcoming work year.

By Andrew Julius Bende

Daily Leader – on behalf of the members, Secretariat and Board.

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Over the next 20 months, we will be working with a group of 20 youths across Denmark and Norway and delve into everyday sustainability in their households and immediate communities, to build a more grounded/practical meaning to this otherwise widely used term. The best place to start we believe in creating a connection between everyday lived experiences of commonly excluded communities and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which since 2015 have acted as a guiding signpost towards a more sustainable work, where “no one is left behind” and where we “do not do harm”. The catch with the Agenda 2030 – as it has come to be commonly referred to, is that it has become a high-level policy agenda, and although many have worked on localizing this agenda, the actions, and narratives – let alone the definition of what sustainability means to people in different contexts, remains a top-down application.

Questions like, does sustainability mean the same to the Director of a big conglomerate as it does for a 15-year-old in the Ghettos of Copenhagen? Probably yes. But does it look the same in everyday practice? We doubt this a lot. So, how do we connect the common meanings to everyday practice to bring the two points of departure closer to each other, towards a common agenda? The project is an attempt to define sustainability and the application of it at the grassroots level through lived experience, as an exemplification of what really happens here and how policy and decision/interventions can better be tailored to reality. In fact, as we publish this little blog, Verdens Bedste Nyheder (World’s Best News, 2022), just published a really interesting article on the educational achievements of young people in Ghetto communities in Denmark – an example of an underground movement and determination, that rarely comes to radar when policies are top-down focused. Could we utilize such momentum to strengthen the meaning, aspirations, and context-specific interventions toward everyday sustainability? Read VBN’s article here.

Motivation:

To reach the SDGs (Agenda 2030) within the next 9 years, we need to rethink what we mean by terminologies like “LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND” and “DO NO HARM”. The practice over the years has been concentrated on how the SDGs are relevant in the different contexts, and it is only recently that we have started mobilizing stakeholders to action – start implementing/grounding the SDGs indicators in their work (VORESMÅL, 2020), as opposed to business as usual.

According to a survey of how well the Danish people know about/understand the SDGs conducted by Advice for DANIDA (2019), at least 75% answered that they have heard about SDGs. However, only 11% attest to knowing the SDGs well, while the majority 63% answer that they have heard about them but do not really understand them well. 25% do not know about the SDGs. And, when one digs under the hood, while resourced people – those with high education, and engage themselves in the cultural lives of their communities more often attest to knowing the SDGs well (20%), this, falls to only 4% of the groups with either lower education or that live on the margins/sidelines of society.

Similar conclusions are made about all Nordic countries (2030-Netværk, 2019), in a comparative review on how well Denmark works with the SDGs both within the EU and among the UN member countries. One of the groups our partnership works with is young people in what is gazetted as “Ghetto” areas in Denmark, or high-density migrant, and often low-resourced spaces in both Denmark and Norway, as well as rural sparsely populated areas in northern Norway. When we ask about SDGs, it is common to hear words like “that is all companies greenwashing”, or “how do the SDGs apply to my every day?”, and of course, narratives of differences in social-economic treatment and discriminatory policies vs. the national calls for “no one left behind!”. Others mention that the SDGs are too complicated – too many (almost across the spectra).

But is it not exactly these challenges that the SDGs intend to eliminate? And specifically, how do we get young people from marginalized communities on board localizing the SDGs, and creating usable frameworks of interpretation and participation, for the benefit of having “no one left behind”? By our project suggesting a low-cost pilot into developing supportive methods to answer the many puzzling questions around the SDGs and sustainability in general, we will be some of the pioneers in delineating a specifically central community, and intentionally developing tools for working towards their closer inclusion/championing of the SDGs and generally sustainability, and thereby contributing to several of the targets themselves. Moreover, the results and products of this project will be in a form that is both locally and widely easy to utilize, multiply and replicate.

Objectives:

Our project sets out to contribute to a strengthened understanding and methodologies for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals or Agenda 2030, through especially answering to the following objectives.

• Contribute to developing knowledge about sustainability and a green future for all.
• Contribute to including commonly sidelined young Europeans in the lives of their societies.
• Contribute to developing context-aware tools for community mobilization towards sustainability.
• Contribute to the bridging narratives towards common agendas and interpretations.
• Contribute to developing of social and entrepreneurial skills of young people.

Targeting twenty 18–30-year-old young people from marginalized communities in Denmark and Norway, the project contains three parts:

1. Conducting a survey into local narratives of sustainability and the SDGs in marginalized communities and how these relate or compare with the mainstream SDGs agenda 2030. This will be documented in a report publicly available for everyone to refer to.
2. Recruit 20 youth (10 in Denmark, 10 in Norway) as SDGs ambassadors in their communities, and develop/run training, mentoring, and tools development process with them on how they can work with the SDGs and relatedly localize them in their context. Each country will also develop at least 3 action projects, so the young people have hands-on experience with running SDGs projects.
3. Collecting feedback from the participants, mentors, & local communities and together with inputs from the report in point 1 above document these into a strategy for engaging marginalized young people and their communities in localizing the SDGs & issues around sustainability.

The results we expect to deliver by the end of the project:

We want to develop a context-aware model for mobilizing marginalized youths and communities to work towards achieving of the SDGs and sustainability in general, which they often feel is a high-end framework for the “untroubled” communities and feels cryptic/complicated. This will increase the chances of reaching agenda 2030 by creating possible conditions for involving all, and “leaving no one behind”- no matter the resource base or background. It will also give empowerment to the target communities to be part/central in their own development. The project has the following concrete results/contributions:

1. Twenty (20) youth SDG ambassadors mobilized and empowered and are championing actions in local communities (10 in Denmark and 10 in Norway).
2. An analytical report of local vs. mainstream narratives on the SDGs and sustainability in general – to assess if there exist gaps and to identify areas for bridging.
3. Six (6) local actions (small scale group projects) based on SDGs implemented across the two countries.
4. A mentoring program tested and adjusted for how to empower marginalized youth to act around the SDGs and sustainability as a whole.
5. All the above will calumniate into – “A methodology for mobilizing marginalized youths and communities into action towards sustainability”.

Project partners

Civil Connections Community Foundation – Denmark: https://civilconnections.org/

Creatorium – Norway: https://www.facebook.com/creatoriuminternational/about/

Stay in touch, and follow our work:

Project page: https://civilconnections.org/sdg-demystify/

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Long before the Covid19 pandemic, precisely – the spring of 2019, Civil Connections fell into a network with an interesting documentarist – Neil Bell, who at the same time happened to be the founder and CEO of a high-impact, social-focused,  game development company in Sweden – Impact Unified. Neil was showcasing an award-winning board game – THE JOURNEY ISTANBUL, under the framework of the Euro Mediterranean fostering of dialogue for cultural understanding and regional peace in the wake of migrations and new societal configurations. As Neil went on, true the board game has and continues to have a high impact, but this impact had the potential to be exponentially extended/distributed to audiences across the globe if it was turned into an already beaming trend of digital educational games.

As the conversation went on – another 2 years later, both Civil Connections and Impact Unified, flanked by two other partners – AddArt of Greece and Systems and Generations of Turkey, evolved the idea into a project with several components, which were later found relevant under the Erasmus plus funding program, thereby attracting a grant in December 2021.

Below is a resume of the core components and process of this project.

The project:

The project seeks to promote European values and intercultural dialogue to build common histories in the face of immigration into the European Union and new forms of interaction over the past and many years to come. This is embedded in innovating an award-winning board game into a more agile, easy to multiply, close to realistic presentation of refugee journeys into an Augmented reality version (AR). This is aimed at bringing the dialogue about refugees and migration to each and every European’s close experience as long as they have access to a screen. And help to build a virtual cultural heritage museum in order to provide an available repository of cultural knowledge.

This project has a background in the trends and figures provided by the UNHCR, although the total number of migrants arriving in Europe peaked in October 2015 when approximately 222,500 refugees and migrants arrived in one month, of which most by far (211,700) landed in Greece, coming from Turkey, this flow of migration from the Middle Eastern and North African countries will continue, and most likely to be exuberated by the recent shocks of the Covid19 global pandemic. Of course, this comes with many social-cultural challenges to the European community, especially the young populations, educators, and the job market sector that need to welcome, understand, interact, and support the settling of the newcomers.

In light of these, we cannot just close our eyes and hope that the troubles and related processes will sort themselves out. We need to strategically act. Our answer in this project is to share various several practices on how we can do this by innovating an award-winning board game into a more agile, easy to multiply, close to realistic presentation of refugee journeys into an Augmented reality version (AR). This is aimed at bringing the dialogue about refugees and migration to each and every Europen’s close experience as long as they have access to a screen. Thus, this project is one of the contributions to a more culturally aware, diverse, and integrated part of the world.

Objectives:

The project seeks to promote European values and intercultural dialogue to build common histories in the face of immigration into the European Union and new forms of interaction over the past and many years to come. The project’s fundamental value is its aim to innovatively do this through enhancing digital skills, new technologies learning and utilization, critical thinking, and media literacy, but also help to build a virtual cultural heritage museum in order to provide an available repository of cultural knowledge. We want to widen people’s knowledge, and knowledge sources through developing a repository of usable, expandable, easily multipliable, socially, and technologically innovative, publically available products.

The project concretely aims at giving possibilities to European partners to develop innovative ideas – here in the form of an AR migration game and related supportive components, that among others contribute to:

• The strengthening of cross-cutting cooperation around the ideas of European citizenship, and tincture cultural awareness for citizens – in a creative and innovative way.
• To engage different actors – organizations, education institutions, and policy circles, to gain the skills and replicable platforms and knowledge/tools repositories to empower current and future generations to be culturally aware, successful innovators in their local communities.
• To provide skills, technologies, and competencies to young people as well as adults to creatively come up with innovative solutions to societal challenges
• To create cultural, intercultural, multicultural awareness among participants by leading them into the essence of other cultures and letting them be better acquainted with their cultural heritage and ultimately promote interculturally
• To discover and appreciate cultural diversity, to enrich our lives in order to prevent humanity’s cultural heritage from being destroyed and forgotten.

Implementation/Results:

The project results will include the following:

1. Innovating the board game “The Journey: Istanbul” into or to the level of Augmented Reality (AR). The board game “The Journey: Istanbul” has been already introduced, publicized, and played in over 20 countries and achieved great success. System & Generation included the game in their regular activities such as English Conversation Clubs to contribute to awareness-raising efforts. The game was also included as an activity by many youth exchanges in Bulgaria- Bansko, Plovdiv, and Sofia; Turkey – Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, Corum; Georgia –Tbilisi; the UK – London; Sweden – Simrishamn, Göteborg. The game has been played by about 1,000 youngsters so far and reached around 5,000 indirect beneficiaries. The AR version of the board game will make the gaming experience more realistic and effective.
2. Create a Live Action Role Playing (LARP) game titled ‘What Now?’, based on locations in Greece to make the participants feel like “walking in the shoes of a refugee” or trying to find a way out of there. This will be followed by game rules that will make it applicable in any European country. Live-Action Role-Playing (LARP) game entails the quest – ‘What Now?’ It is a Live Action Role Playing game where participants take part in a simulated game where they play as refugees who have successfully navigated a long and treacherous path, the participants have finally arrived in Greece, where they are now staying in relative safety in an improvised camp on one of the islands and there is no time to rest. Each participant has a decision to make. Should they continue north from Greece on foot towards Germany and apply for asylum as they get there? Etc. Live-Action Role-Playing takes on the refugee topic will be highly It puts the participants in the shoes of actual refugees and forces them to make decisions refugees must make.
3. Set up an open-access web- and app-based platform hosting Virtual Cultural Heritage Museum (VCHM) using Augmented Reality (AR) which will serve as an online digital platform to make all the above products available, as well as collect other videos of various migrant stories. These videos will include stories about the life of refugees – as well as well-established and well-known figures of migratory background – and what values these people have brought with them. Creating and developing the Virtual Cultural Heritage Museum will allow us to further raise awareness about migration and common cultural heritage, and reach even a larger number of people all around the world, as the platform will be available worldwide in several languages (English, Turkish, Greek). The Virtual Cultural Heritage Museum (VCHM) both on the web and in the Augmented Reality (AR) versions will provide an online digital platform for people of different nationalities and cultures to share their own values and cultural heritage as well as encounter those of others. Linking up with other similar virtual archives including at the Global, EU-, national and regional levels will give further traction to the project and reach wider user communities.
4. Publish a comic book with the stories of surviving refugees told by the fisherman role model Kostas Pinteris which will also be put on stage by theatrical performances by drama students from the different partner countries to enhance empathy based on the above-mentioned stories of Kostas Pinteris. Kostas Pinteris, a fisherman on the Greek island Lesbos, has been rescuing refugees from drowning in the Aegean Sea for many years and has become a local hero, and has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize. Pinteris is among the closest eyewitnesses to what Syrian refugees have suffered in their efforts to reach Greece. He has collected a large volume of memories and stories about refugees and the re-telling of his stories about refugees in Greek amphitheaters will help refugees’ voices to be heard and their stories are passed on to future generations.

Project partners:

The project is a consortium of four organizations from diverse regions of the European Union including Denmark and Sweden from the North point, Greece, and Turkey from the South. The organizations representing the countries include:

• Civil Connections Community Foundation (CCCF) of Denmark
• Impact Unified AB of Sweden – https://www.impactunified.com/
• Participation Design Agency of Sweden – participation.design
• System and Generation Association of Turkey – systemandgeneration.com
• AddArt of Greece – addart.gr

Project website: https://civilconnections.org/the-journey-now/

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Project Soar and Civil Connections are beginning working together on BIGGER, a movement that aims to close legal loopholes to child marriage in Morocco by 2025. But why is this such important work? This article lays out why child marriage is such a critical issue in Morocco. 

Child marriage has been a critical issue in Morocco. Unicef defines child marriage as “any formal marriage or informal union between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child.” Child marriage is considered a violation of human rights where girls are mostly the biggest victims. In an attempt to prevent child marriage and advance women’s status in Morocco, the Moroccan government reformed the Family Law in 2004.  The reforms set the legal age for marriage to be eighteen for both men and women, whereas the legal age previously was eighteen for men but fifteen for girls. They also changed the obligation of having a Wali (Legal Guardian) for the marriage to be valid; now the bride can validate herself to marry. These reforms were indeed praised by scholars and feminists and were seen as a progressive step towards women’s emancipation. However, these reforms were still a concern since they have legal loopholes that allow the continuation of child marriage. 

Child marriage can be driven by several reasons within Moroccan society. Poverty is considered one of the main reasons why child marriage is happening in Morocco since parents attempt to marry their daughters to relieve the financial burden. Social norms are also considered another crucial factor as to why child marriage persists in a subset of Moroccan society. Since sex outside of wedlock is forbidden, parents tend to encourage or sometimes force their daughters to get married before the legal age only to preserve the family honour and avoid the shame of having a daughter engaging in premarital sex. Furthermore, marriage in Morocco is seen by some to have a beneficial social and financial impact on the girl’s life and the reputation of her family. Culturally, marriage in morocco has a very profound weight, in a way that girls are encouraged to marry as early as possible because otherwise their chances of getting married are reduced the older they get. Some people also see that the purity of those who stay unmarried for so long can be questioned as well.

Until now the government has still not succeeded in eradicating child marriage practices.

When the figures from after the introduction of the new legislation are compared with the figures from before the new legislation, there still do not appear to be any major changes. And the figures have remained almost the same.  This is mainly because the reforms have loopholes. The 2004 reform under the new government was announced as the Moudwana (Family Code). To marry, women no longer require permission from their male guardians. Despite the law’s ban on marriages under the age of 18, child marriages are still taking place.

Due to the loopholes in the law of the Family Code, courts can make exceptions whenever someone wants to marry a minor. Researchers Thierry Desrues and Juana Nieto contend that the Moroccan judiciary system is a conservative system that opposes the essence of the family law; they illustrated that from February to December 2004, 96% of the applications for minor marriage were approved. There was a general recognition that the present legal framework is insufficient or improperly enforced: There are no impenetrable laws protecting girls from being compelled to marry by their parents, even when they are as young as 13 or 14 years old.

Because of the loopholes in the law, and due to the poverty and the financial burden in families, child marriages are still possible. There is still work to be done in Morocco to close all legal loopholes to child marriage. Data from the Moroccan Ministry of Justice and Freedom for the period 2004-2014 reported by UNICEF show that the proportion of all marriages in family courts where minors were involved increased from 7% in 2004  to 11,5% in 2013. However, it should be noted that this data does not take into account unregistered marriages which are abundant in Morocco making it an imperfect estimate of the progress of child marriages in Morocco as a whole. Because of these loopholes in the law, child marriage remains a serious issue in Morocco as the following statistics reveal: 

• In Morocco, 14% of girls are married before they reach the age of 18, and 4% are married before they reach the age of 15. 
• The Moroccan Minister of Justice reported in early 2020 that 32,000 requests for child marriages were received in 2019, with 81 per cent of them being authorized.
• In 2007, there were 33,596 underage marriages.
• According to the Ministry of Justice, there was 41.098 child marriage in 2010.
• 2009 In Morocco, there were 23,59 per cent more child marriages in 2011 than in 2010.
• By the age of 18, one-quarter of Moroccan girls with no education got married, compared to only 7% of those with secondary or higher education. 

In conclusion, the practice of child marriage remains in small portions of society in Morocco due to legal loopholes, and a potentially large amount go unrecorded. Progressive steps such as reforming the law are already made, these legislations and policy measures have the greatest potential to end child and forced marriage in theory. However, the law is hampered by obstacles such as the loopholes in the family law. Poverty and social norms are reasons why child marriage is happening. It leads to financial and social impacts on a girl’s life and reputation. Easing the burden on society as a whole, particularly in terms of health expenditures and psychological repercussions on girls. Because parents and extended families play such a large part in marrying off girls and young women, education and awareness-raising at all ages is deemed necessary. In general, it must be acknowledged that underage marriage is a complicated issue with social, economic, cultural, and legal ramifications. Legislation alone cannot provide immediate remedies; instead, a complete strategy is required.

The BIGGER Movement (Building the Girls Rights Movement in Morocco) will take a multifaceted approach towards ending child marriage in Morocco, including drafting amended legislation, a national girl survey, grassroots Soar Dialogues to garner a network of communities supporting the cause, an online awareness campaign, and advocacy training for Soar Girls (led in partnership with Mobilising Rights Associates. These activities will culminate in lobbying trips to Morocco’s capital for Soar Girls to meet with national stakeholders, bringing girls’ voices to the table, and providing real traction to close these loopholes once and for all.

Want to read more about our project in Morocco, follow this link:

Projects

Sources

2019 saw more than 30,000 requests for marriage to minors in Morocco. (2020, 22 januari). Middle East Monitor. Geraadpleegd op 13 maart 2022, van https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200122-2019-saw-more-than-30000-requests-for-marriage-to-minors-in-morocco/ 

A teacher’s journey to keep girls in school and avoid child marriage in Morocco. (2019). Girls Not Brides. Geraadpleegd op 13 maart 2022, van https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/articles/mohamad-keeping-girls-school-avoid-child-marriage-morocco/ 

Child Marriage, Family Law, and Religion: An Introduction to the Fall 2015 Issue. (2019). Taylor & Francis. Geraadpleegd op 9 maart 2022, van https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15570274.2015.1075761

ENPSF. (2018). Enquête national sur la population et la sante familiale (ENPSF). https://www.sante.gov.ma/Documents/2019/10/ENPSF-2018.pdf

Kohno, A. (2020, 17 juli). Investigation of the key factors that influence the girls to enter into child marriage: A meta-synthesis of qualitative evidence. PLOS ONE. Geraadpleegd op 10 maart 2022, van https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0235959

Maaroufi, Y. (2019). Note d’information du Haut-Commissariat au Plan à l’occasion de la journée internationale de la femme du 8 mars 2019. Site institutionnel du Haut-Commissariat au Plan du Royaume du Maroc. Geraadpleegd op 9 maart 2022, van https://www.hcp.ma/Note-d-information-du-Haut-Commissariat-au-Plan-a-l-occasion-de-la-journee-internationale-de-la-femme-du-8-mars-2019_a2297.html

Ministère de la Santé DPRF/DPE/SEIS Rabat, Maroc Projet PAPFAM Ligue des États Arabes Le Caire, Egypte. (2012, december). ENQUÊTE NATIONALE SUR LA POPULATION ET LA SANTÉ FAMILIALE (ENPSF-2011). ROYAUME DU MAROC. https://www.sante.gov.ma/Documents/Enquête%20.pdf

Saadoun, A. (2020, 30 augustus). Underage Marriage in Morocco: Closing the Legal Loopholes. Legal Agenda. Geraadpleegd op 14 maart 2022, van https://english.legal-agenda.com/underage-marriage-in-morocco-closing-the-legal-loopholes/

 Sabbe, A. (2013, 16 oktober). Determinants of child and forced marriage in Morocco: stakeholder perspectives on health, policies and human rights – BMC International Health and Human Rights. BioMed Central. Geraadpleegd op 13 maart 2022, van https://bmcinthealthhumrights.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-698X-13-43

Sabbe, A. (2013b, oktober 16). Determinants of child and forced marriage in Morocco: stakeholder perspectives on health, policies and human rights – BMC International Health and Human Rights. BioMed Central. Geraadpleegd op 14 maart 2022, van https://bmcinthealthhumrights.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-698X-13-43

UNICEF & International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). (2017). MOROCCO Country Brief UNICEF Regional Study on Child Marriage In the Middle East andNorth Africa. https://www.unicef.org/morocco/media/181/file/Mariage%20des%20enfants%20au%20Maroc.pdf

Womenâs perspectives on marriage and rights in Morocco: risk factors for forced and early marriage in the Marrakech region. (2020). Taylor & Francis. Geraadpleegd op 9 maart 2022, van https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13691058.2014.964773 

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In Zimbabwe, the government want to pass the Private Voluntary Organizations Bill, which could, unfortunately, lead to the shrinking of civil society space and opportunities for youth engagement. This bill would force organizations to register as a POV, and 60% of their leadership would be allocated to the government. This is a part of an effort to stop civil society organizations from engaging in ‘politics’ (a very broad category), but this is seen as being defined as any activity which goes against the government. In Zimbabwe, an economic meltdown has resulted in one of the world’s highest rates of inflation.

Girls Choose is the flagship model of our partners My Age Zimbabwe (MAZ), where every year they train over 200 young women, girls, and young men. The project we are beginning now cements the work they have been doing over the past five years, and importantly, will further solidify MAZ’s work with important stakeholders in the region. Girls Choose helps capacitate young people by making them champions for SRHR and HIV, these will be also key in referring young people for services including HIV testing and counselling, STI treatment and related services! 

During our kick-off meeting, we went through our shared project objectives, how we hope to achieve lasting change and which local actors we want to activate towards building confidence and awareness around sexual health among youth. With strategic partnerships with the Ministry of Health, Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council and National Aids Council, My Age Zimbabwe will aim to actively engage young people in and out of school clubs, as well as mobilize participants for assemblies.

After stating that government programming is not enough to save communities in Zimbabwe, where mining towns and famine areas act as hotspots for sexually transmitted infections, Onward from MAZ said:

‘As young people, we best know to engage in our peers. We know how to mobilise the community and engage the community effectively’.

After kick-off Girls Choose, we are looking forward to continuing the great work done by MAZ over our next year of collaboration.

Want to know more about Girls Choose? Then check out the project here: 

https://civilconnections.org/projects/ 

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The post HackYourFuture: Can coding offer a different path to integration in Denmark? appeared first on .

I found that Coming to the Nordics revealed the diversity of migrants’ stories, even those coming from and going to the same place. This often depends on the resources they have open to them in their home countries and the circumstances of their journeys and where they end up.

Often, we fail to understand the personal nature of migrants’ stories and they become an abstract group we hear about on the news, but we often sympathise with people when their stories are personalised and we hear the details of what they’ve actually been through. Suddenly, they cease to be just a migrant, and become an individual, just like us. For me, the best thing about the podcast is this personalisation—it gives people the chance to empathise and achieve a more humane perspective.

In Denmark, there’s a lot of pressure to integrate. Migrants are subject to integration contracts, depending on the degree to which one is a migrant of privilege. Despite my increasingly unenviable international status, as a migrant from Britain I have not been subject to many demands in terms of integration but for others, there is great pressure to show willing to learn Danish and speedily find a way into the labour market. It’s also a difficult country to integrate into—it is proven that it’s hard to learn Danish and it’s difficult to be casual, funny and interesting in a language that’s such an uphill struggle.

Much emphasis is placed on migrants learning Danish in order to integrate, but the fact remains that almost all (especially young) Danes are fluent in English. It is often the case that a migrant will have knowledge of English prior to their arrival and therefore, it may not be the case that learning Danish straight away is the best path to integration. It might be that in the short term, such demands should be reduced. Newcomers in general do seem to be keen on learning Danish, but to expect them to do this at the expense of becoming comfortable in society via their English skills is debatably unreasonable.

Unfortunately, things are going in the opposite direction. The desire to reduce the amount of international higher education programmes taught in English stems from a fear of Danish language and culture disappearing, but this point of view is fundamentally negative and driven by what I see as an unrealistic fear. This is especially the case for those who want to have a more diverse Denmark open to new ideas and a solution to what is undeniably an ageing society in need of migrant labour.

Sometimes, Danes don’t realise that you can live in Copenhagen and not really engage with Danish, and sometimes not even Danish people! You can live in a mixed migrant community without engaging in Danishness. While Copenhagen markets itself as being international, the Danish state puts a lot of emphasis on becoming culturally Danish. But this itself is an assumption of what’s best.

Again, it is a matter of privilege. If you are working for a massive company like Maersk and you’re a relatively privileged white person from Germany for example, the pressure to learn Danish will be minimal, but if you’re a refugee with no financial backing from home and unrecognised qualifications, you will enter into an integration contract with the requirement of engaging in language learning and the labour market, often through internships at supermarkets and similarly questionable employment schemes.

I’ve been able to navigate my time in Copenhagen while studying and after graduation partly because of different aspects of Danish welfare and, since finishing my master’s, I’ve been able to work for small organisations and learnt a lot of new skills. It takes graduates—even Danish ones—a long time to get a full-time job after graduation; without the Danish welfare system, I would have been forced straight into the service industry upon graduating, but people being shoved into employment immediately is not necessarily the best outcome for society. Instead, finding a way into a more appropriate job will likely end up with me paying more tax and contributing to society in a way that makes sense in my specific case.

Due to Brexit and the upping of tuition fees in the UK, my experiences of higher education, both in Denmark and Britain, would likely not be repeatable if I were to try it now. My Erasmus year abroad in Denmark in 2014 and my master’s at the University of Copenhagen would no longer be possible as, since Brexit, I would have to pay a large amount of money for a master’s as a British citizen and I’d undoubtedly need to be a more financially privileged person to do so.

Sometimes, it’s hard to see the large-scale shifts happening around you. The conservatism and fear of diversity and change present in countries like Denmark and Britain is something usually apparent in politics and voting behaviour, but while the fact that I could not repeat the steps that brought me to Denmark shows the closing of doors behind me, the unequal demands of the Danish integration system demonstrate a lack of trust in migrant populations. For those drawn to diversity, the freedom of experience and learning unjudgementally about others’ cultures, this indicates an increasingly grey world where privilege is the ticket to experience.

I believe that if you treat people well and express trust in them, they will show a willingness to engage in your society. People want to integrate, but there is no evidence that punishment and obligation is the path to successful integration.

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