Youth Civic Participation in Secondary Schools

With support from Voice, Sensitise Uganda implements a civic education project called “Youth civic participation in secondary schools”. The project is implemented in collaboration with Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC). The goal of the project is to promote civic engagement and support democratic and participatory good governance for the students to become more responsible and active citizens as they grow up.

The project specifically seeks to;-

1. To enhance the students’ knowledge and ability to analyze, evaluate, take and defend positions on public issues, and to use their knowledge to participate in civic and political processes.
2. To Provide students the platform to engage in active citizenship through providing the technicalities and issues involved in democratic governance.
3. To empower students with the political and civic knowledge and capacity to stand as electoral candidates, speech writers, and election observers.

Civic education exposes students to the nation’s values and constitution, their rights, duties and obligations and how good citizens of a country should be ready to perform their civic responsibilities towards the growth and development of their society and the nation at large.

Key activities under this project are; development of  a civic education handbook for secondary school students, debate and article writing competitions on key public issues, policies and laws, supporting schools to organize school guild elections using the mock elections approach, supporting students to participate in international day celebrations like International Youth Day, conducting annual sharing and reflection platforms between students, supporting students to attend the Parliament week, organising and conducting leadership Camps for the elected student guild leaders and conducting coaching and mentorship for the student leaders.

By the end of the project, there will be increased civic knowledge, civic skills and civic disposition. That is;- students will have understood the workings of the political system and of their own political and civic rights and responsibilities. The students’ ability to analyze, evaluate, take and defend positions on public issues, and to use their knowledge to participate in civic and political processes will have increased. Students’ traits necessary for a democracy will have been built.