Dear Readers,

In this issue of our newsletter, we take a look back at the NECE Conference in Marseille, which brought together over 400 citizenship educators and activists from more than 40 nations. The participants appreciated the idea of placing the focus of the conference on the fragile state of democracies worldwide and on discussing and displaying the response of citizenship education.

NECE Marseille will be remembered for its “southern” spirit, a big “open space” for exchanging ideas and practices, a space for networking around the fields of political analysis, political practice and citizenship education, whose strength is a unique mix of diversity and openness, transnational outlook and local anchoring.

In her keynote speech, Emily O'Reilly, the European Ombudsman, summed up the basic idea and mission of NECE 2018:

“This conference believes that one antidote to this move towards damaging and divisive populism is the development of citizenship education (..) I take this to mean increasing people’s capacity to understand and to exercise good judgment on the nature of the political, social and economic world around them and to make rational decisions from that understanding that contribute to the common good whether through the simple act of voting or through greater active involvement.”

Please check out our extensive documentation of transcripts, videos, and reports from Marseille, including the photo gallery taken by Caroline Dutrey of the event’s atmosphere: http://www.nece-conference.eu/documentation/

NECE 2019 will move north to Glasgow, in order to forge closer links with citizens and colleagues in the UK and Scotland in the year of Brexit, to show our solidarity when more than 60 million UK citizens will (most probably) have lost their formal citizenship of the European Union. Please save the date: 24-27 October 2019. More information about the thematic focus and the location will follow as soon as possible.

We are looking forward to meeting you in Glasgow. Please stay tuned and keep in touch with NECE!

(Christoph Müller-Hofstede)

NECE partners from different European countries and the NECE Advisory Board met at an internal workshop in Warsaw, Poland. In separate and joint sessions, the international experts and practitioners in citizenship education discussed current developments and challenges their profession is facing on the European level. They also evaluated the NECE 2018 conference in Marseille in order to put the lessons learned into practice when preparing NECE 2019 in Glasgow. Another point of debate was the future strategic positioning of NECE as an international initiative promoting citizenship education: What role can NECE play on the European level? Which crucial partner organisations or networks operate in the same field?

From 3-7 December 2018, the third edition of the Civic Education Conference (CEC) took place in Casablanca (Morocco). The platform, inspired by NECE, focused on assessing the development of the sector and discussing the current state of civic education in the MENA region covering a variety of themes (digitisation, research in the Arab world, preventing violent extremism and rebuilding citizenship in post-conflict societies). More than 200 participants from the MENA states, Europe and other regions involving various backgrounds (civil society, academia, Media, corporate institutions and governmental bodies) were joined the gathering.
The conference resolutions will soon be published here!

The DARE network - Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe - has just released its position paper on the EU for Citizens programme under the proposed new Rights and Values fund (2021-2027). We are happy to share the position with you and hope it supports the current discussions on the future of this programme that is incredibly important, albeit still way too small.
Read the paper here.

A successful gathering took place this summer in Ukraine from 21-27 June. 16 youth managers and trainers from 7 countries discussed how to plan and implement projects based on Weber’s method. They also covered the learning cycle and education through David Kolb's experiential learning theory and had time to work on the content of those methods. This working group and other activities are fundamental for upcoming new projects and new people involved. For this year and next year, EENCE is looking forward to expanding and engaging more specialists from different regions, formal institutions and NGOs, which will help to broaden the network’s impact.
Find out more about EENCE here.

Do you want to improve inclusion in citizenship education? Please join our mailing list! Creative energies at the NECE Marseille Conference 2018 suggested great ideas for new projects. Please contact us if you are interested in joining a small group to develop any of these ideas into an exciting project or to discuss how these projects might relate to your work and interests. Over the winter, we will be working in order to set up working partnerships, write realistic project plans and submit bids for funding.
Get in touch on Facebook or via info@allinnetwork.eu.

In this section, we attempt to assess and analyse the changing political landscape that we are confronted with. Contributions from our NECE partners and Advisory Board members are always welcome.

In its ambition to become more involved in citizenship education on the European level and against the background of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) by the European Commission as well as the results of the ECIT summer school (6-7 September 2018) and the manifesto, NECE has asked Maarten de Groot (ECIT campaign manager) and Tony Venables (European consultant and lobbyist) for a first analysis of the current state of play showing the potentials and motives for NECE. The project is to be continued in 2019.
The reports can be downloaded here!

We are happy to announce that the open-access version of the book “Reality Lost: Markets of Attention, Misinformation and Manipulation” from Vincent F. Hendricks and Mads Vestergaard, who made inspiring speeches at the recent NECE conference in Marseille, is now online. You can download it here.

In 2014, Les Têtes de l’Art created “Europe à la barre” (“Trial Europe”). This dramatised trial aims at experimenting a new form of debate that allows all stakeholders to address European issues in an innovative and efficient way. The intention was to mix theatrical expression with legal expertise and practical facts about the European Union in order to (re)gain the interest of European citizens. Actors, politicians and experts on the European Union meet on the stage. A mix of fiction and reality, humour is distilled into the seriousness of the speech and real witnesses express themselves before pretend lawyers. Europe is the accused in the dock; the actors’ role is to defend it or, on the contrary, to argue against it. Europe becomes human here, an incarnate object with qualities, defects and actions that it is possible to interpret.
For a glance at the play, please consult this link. For any further information, please contact julien@lestetesdelart.fr

On 20 November, on Universal Children’s Day, 100 children aged 8 to 12 visited the Luxembourg parliament and engaged in discussions with members of parliament. In the run-up to that meeting, six school classes and two youth groups from eight different municipalities “built their politician”, a man-sized cardboard figure. They covered it with their concerns, wishes and requests and finally presented “their” politicians and speeches to the deputies. As children aged 8 to 12 cannot take part in elections, this project enables them to participate in a different way, adapted to the context they live in and to be less reticent when engaging in a discussion with politicians in office.
Get to know more about the ZfP in Luxembourg here.

On 7 November, ProDemos, in cooperation with the Library Schilderswijk, had the honour of welcoming the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in Schilderswijk. Schilderswijk is a neighbourhood in The Hague that has been struggling with multiple challenges. Due to these challenges, it has a rather negative image, although the neighbourhood has improved substantially in the last 10 years. During this evening, citizens living in Schilderswijk were able to put their questions to the prime minister directly and discuss topics that are important to them. The evening was a success. The event was attended by many citizens, children and adults, in addition to some media. More importantly however, this meeting showed that bringing the government and citizens together to discuss current societal challenges is a good way to find solutions. We should encourage this type of meeting to be held more often, also in other countries.
Find out more about ProDemos here.

Debating Europe is an online discussion platform where you can communicate your ideas and suggestions directly to policymakers and influential thinkers, in order to support or criticise vital issues that shape our future. Get involved and start debating now!

The Citizens Observatory of Democracy is a joint initiative of non-governmental organisations that promote principles and standards of democracy, the rule of law, respect for and protection of human rights, transparency and accountability of public administration and that advocate for an improved quality of legislation. It keeps track of changes to legislation made by parliament and government administration and the reactions from civil society organisations, legal professionals and citizens’ groups. The COD publishes reviews, opinions and position papers written by non-governmental organisations and civil-society institutions in response to legislation that affects civil rights and liberties, the democratic rule of law and the political system and defines the position of public and civil society organisations within the legal system.
If you want to inform yourself about the current situation in Poland click here.

In 2009, the EU-Member States committed themselves to peer learning and the exchange of good practices, including the dissemination of outcomes, when they adopted the new Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in Education and Training (ET). At a June-2018 meeting in Vienna, the High Level Group on Education and Training endorsed the new mandates for the six existing ET 2020 Working Groups for the period 2018-2020. The “Working Group on Promoting Common Values and Inclusive Education'' concentrates on improving intercultural competencies, providing inclusive education for all learners and enhancing the European dimension of Education and Training. It will also focus on supporting school staff with regard to diversity issues.
If you want to know more about the Workgroups outcome and see what’s going on in the Education and Training Sector, check out and subscribe for the ET Newsletter here.

You receive the NECE Newsletter because you subscribed and have confirmed that you wish to receive information about the NECE-Networking European Citizenship Education initiative. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.

The NECE Newsletter is published regularly and distributed via e-mail. It is available to anyone on the www.nece.eu website. The newsletter is published by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education), which is responsible for its content according to definitions laid down by the German Telemedia Act.

Further contact information:
Federal Agency for Civic Education
Adenauerallee 86
53113 Bonn (Germany)
www.nece.eu

Responsible for the content:
Petra Grüne
gruene@bpb.bund.de
Christoph Müller-Hofstede
mueller-hofstede@bpb.de

Editorial support:
Susanne Pöschko & Sandra Mayer
nece-newsletter@labconcepts.de

If you have any questions please e-mail to: nece-newsletter@labconcepts.de