Rabat - Over 90 teachers and 3,000 students from secondary schools will be targeted in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt by a new project called "Forming Responsible Citizens: Citizenship and equality education for school prevention of violence."
On Friday, April 24, 2015, at the premises of the Local Ministry of Education, Academy of Education and Training in the Chaouia Wardigha region, Ideaborn and the Moroccan Center for Civic Education presented the project "Forming Responsible Citizens: Citizenship and equality education for school prevention of violence."
The project is labeled by the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Over 40 participants, representing Ministry of Education and Ministry of Justice policy makers, teachers, students, civil society organizations, unions, and media representatives, attended the meeting. The project’s partners presented its objectives and the expected activities and results.
At the opening ceremony, Mr. Abdelkader Talbi, Head of the Local Ministry of Education in Settat, spoke about the importance of the initiative and the role of partnerships with national and international partners in promoting the culture of civic education to prevent school violence.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Elarbi Imad, president of the Moroccan Center for Civic Education, also stressed the importance of the Forming Responsible Citizenship project in terms of preventing school violence not only in Morocco, but also in Tunisia and Egypt.
Ms. Chiara Gidetti, Executive Director of Ideaborn, gave an overview of the project. She stated the rationale behind it and explained the main objectives and activities to be conducted, as well as the various stages of the project.
The Forming Responsible Citizens project aims to contribute to the prevention of violence against girls and women through the implementation of a renewed civic education curriculum in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. The project will be implemented in close coordination with the national authorities in charge of education and training. Over 90 teachers and 3,000 students from secondary schools will be targeted by project activities.
The project will develop a new curriculum, covering topics such as civic concepts, systems, processes of civic life, gender equality, education for human rights, and inclusive and sustainable development that will improve basic citizenship and equality skills. It will train teachers in citizenship education with new materials and methodologies, in addition to providing practical training in gender equality and conflict management and resolution. The project will also enhance the participation of students and families in the school organization.
The participants also took the floor to make comments and suggestions. Most of them mentioned the main causes of school violence and proposed ways to prevent it.
At the end of the meeting, Mr. Mohammed Laaouina concluded by thanking the institutions and the partners involved in implementing this promising and ambitious project and urged the participants to be heavily involved in the diagnostic and implementation stages in order to work together to prevent the phenomenon of school violence. He also showed his readiness to contribute to the success of the program.
This project falls within the UfM’s strategic objective to develop a Euro-Mediterranean women’s empowerment initiative, a key follow-up to the Declaration of the UfM Third Ministerial Conference on Strengthening the Role of Women in Society, and as a contribution to the Beijing+20 process.
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