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Description
Civil society and active citizens have an important role to play in a democratic and open society. This includes standing up for human rights, protecting the interest of minorities and vulnerable groups, and preserving natural resources and the environment. Active members of civil society are defenders of democracy who notice problems in society and who dare to take the responsibility for solving them. They point out when the leaders of these countries go against open society and democratic values. The Democracy Defenders Accelerator´ (DDA) aims to raise the awareness of active citizens about the principles of an open society, democratic values, and the functioning of civil society, so that they can take responsibility for initiating, implementing, and participating in community and societal projects. The DDA consists of 20 online trainings and a 10-day Democracy Defenders Bootcamp. Participants will learn how to design and deliver civic initiatives, tackling one or more problems in civil society and democracy. Additionally, participants will have the opportunity to co-create and maintain a fictional organization that will be active during the whole program. As a result of the DDA program, participants have increased their knowledge of participatory leadership, methods, and technological tools for engagement, in planning, designing, and implementing civic initiative projects, and are able to reflect on their work and give feedback to other people. Further, the positive experience by people who participate in their projects, has given them confidence and experience which we believe will help these projects to have greater community or societal impact.
Summary of project results
Civil society and active citizens have an important role to play in a democratic and open society. This includes standing up for human rights, protecting the interest of minorities and vulnerable groups, and preserving natural resources and the environment. Active members of civil society are defenders of democracy who notice problems in society and who dare to take the responsibility for solving them. They point out when the leaders of these countries go against open society and democratic values.
The Democracy Defenders Accelerator (DDA) aims to raise the awareness of active citizens about the principles of an open society, democratic values and the functioning of civil society, so that they can take responsibility for initiating, implementing and participating in community and societal projects.
Democracy Defenders Accelerator took place from January through November 2023. Program aims to create a world in which active young citizens are empowered to defend the principles of an open society, democratic values and a well-functioning civil society and take responsibility for solving community or societal issues.
In this immersive, hands-on program, participants learned about democracy and open society and how to design and deliver civic engagement projects. Participants also practiced participatory leadership skills — through designing real-life civic engagement projects. The entire ten-month learning process was supported by mentors and facilitators. The DDA consisted of 20 online sessions and one 10-day Democracy Defenders Bootcamp in Estonia.
88 young activists applied to the program, 44 were selected and 30 participants met the graduation criteria. During the program, participants worked with a real-live civic engagement project and 11 projects were successfully submitted by the end of the DDA project. As an outcome of the program, participants gained new knowledge in democracy and open society, got real-life experience in designing and piloting civic-engagement projects and learnt about participatory leadership.
In January 2024 DDA project team together with participants presented the results of the program, where three groups shared their project outcomes.
By the end of the project, Democracy Defenders Network was created by the alumnus and Citizen OS volunteers, to continue sharing knowledge, learn from each other and keep up an active discussion with like-minded civic activists.
According to feedback, participants admitted that they now feel more empowered to tackle complex problems, maintain a clear focus and approach the project in a way that avoids a loss of motivation and burnout. More specifically, the following key learning outcomes were highlighted by participants:
The program changed the participants’ perception of democracy. They indicated that their imagination was piqued in terms of what democracy can become. This change occurred during the program when participants were encouraged to question facts and norms. For example, people not being born equal is not a fact but a norm. Democratic systems being vulnerable to misinformation is not a fact but a norm. Norms can be changed. Also, complex and “wicked” problems became less daunting because the program taught to break them into smaller problems in a systematic way, etc.
As a result of the ten-month program, the participants together with Citizen OS initiated the Democracy Defenders Network – a participatory network for Citizen OS partners, alumni and like-minded activists to increase the capacity of civil society leaders and improve international cooperation. The network is open for activists and organizations to exchange knowledge and coordinate initiatives together. The network applications are open and accepting new members is on a roll-up basis.