Civic Responsibility
Civic Responsibility
The "Civic Responsibility" program is a year-long empowerment process for youth focused on facilitating the development of crucial communication, conflict resolution and critical thinking skills. This program is the first phase of Window's multi-phase Youth Media and Action Program. Special attention is placed on reaching out to marginalized communities, such as the Bedouin of the Negev, as well as vulnerable groups, including those from low socioeconomic levels. To this end, Windows also prioritizes at least the equal recruitment of girls for its programs, as well as team members for its staff. The Civic Responsibility program occurs in a Single Identity Group (SIG) framework so that participants are offered the space to first focus on themselves and their close communities--their individual and collective needs, as well as their own voices within their collectives. In their SIGs, the youth are able to cultivate their own activist identity in a safe space, making the process of learning and internalizing new information and values both more comfortable and effective. As the youth are exposed to new information about human rights and democratic values, they begin to re-evaluate their reality and their sources of information about such diverse issues as gender, the environment, children's rights, and the conflict, among others.