20 May 2019

School of Democracy: Session one

Engaging with Politics: From WHAT to HOW

From the May 3rd to May 5th, 2019, NIMAR: The Netherlands Institute in Morocco hosted the School of democracy: engaging with politics.

The trainings series aim to inspire young adults to engage in a dialogue with politics, with civil society and with each other. The main objective of this first weekend was to enable the participants to clearly define their purposes and goals through shedding light on the change they aspire to emulate in their respective home communities.

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For that purpose to be fulfilled, the activities of the first day focused mainly on giving insights and brief presentations concerning the political and social realities of the respective countries of both trainers and participants. (Lebanon, the Netherlands, Morocco and Ghana). To come to a clear understanding of the critical points that require urgent actions to change and to conclude that for the tackled issues at the likes of poor quality of education to be overcame and eradicated youth must stand as agents that enable change, impact and sustainable development through achieving their respective objectives.

The focus of the 2nd day then moved from identifying the goal to giving means and assets to achieve; from the "What" to the "How". Numerous workshops were consequently scheduled during the 2nd day from workshops related to public speaking, conflict resolution and stakeholders analysis.

The first session aimed to align the participants and their communication abilities with the ABCs of public speaking (Ethos, Pathos and Logos)then putting them into challenge to verify their ability to a deliver a solution oriented, credible and body language powered speech.

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The agenda of the second day then moved to the session of Conflict resolution following the tree model. The participants had first conducted fruitful conversations around the topic of girls’ education as an example of a conflict then have downscaled it on the tree model by placing the causes of the conflict at the roots and solutions at the leaves level. This session has improved the participants’ knowledge concerning process thinking and has allowed them to use it in practical situations.

This activity was then followed by the stakeholders’ analysis; this session was mainly aiming to present the stakeholders matrix to the participants and to make them capable of positioning the main actors of the civil and political scene in Morocco on the matrix (Political parties, NGO, governmental institutions ...). This session has also laid the ground for the upcoming one that concerned lobbying revealing to the trainees the roadmap they should take to influence the ones in authority to support laws or rules that can bring change and impact to our society. The topic of girls’ education was yet again put under the lenses of participants to trace a lobbying map that they can resort to make the different stakeholders in favour of taking action towards improving girls’ education in Morocco.

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It also noteworthy to mention that NIMAR didn’t care only about the personal development of the selected individuals but has also emphasised on the creation of a synergy within the group and also built contact with the Dutch students of the institute making thus this experience as a whole both full of learning and good souvenirs.