Shehri-Citizens for a Better Environment is executing the project – Youth Empowerment for Engaged Citizenship – that aims to build capacity in youth, both through enhancement and also application of knowledge that relates with informed civic activism. The project aims to provide a model where the academic spaces at the higher level of learning, become facilitators of incorporating knowledge of civic education and pro-active socio-political mobilization and awareness of their fundamental right. This model will be developed through engagement with students of selected higher education institutes in the city of Karachi with the objective of raising awareness and information levels on civic education – the concept and practice, importance and implications. In addition, they will be informed about the public policy arena as it relates with Pakistan and in particular the province of Sindh and Karachi city. They will understand the meaning of social contract in relation to the structure of governance – the legislative, executive and the judiciary and the interfaces between the formal and informal actors situated within the chosen policy universe. They will understand the implications of non-participatory, top heavy policy and planning and understand methodologies of making such processes inclusive.
The proposed project hopes to establish a model framework for a process of creating a politically informed and activated youth citizenry – A model that can find replication and expansion within the pedagogical and academic spaces nationwide. The progressive documentation of project related knowledge products, training and capacity building sessions, learnings and findings would provide the architecture of this model of youth empowered socio-political activism.
For the project launch, an Orientation Session is being organized at the Millenium Institute of Technology & Entrepreneurship (MITE) on Tuesday, December 10, 2024 (9:00 am to 11:30 pm) An engagement with students of the Department of Business & Management Sciences, MITE to orient participating students on the project and to assess and evaluate the level of knowledge and understanding among the young citizenry on the national electoral and governance architecture and role of the citizenry. Students will be encouraged to discuss their perceptions on being a citizen of the state and level of engagement within the national, provincial and city-based policy arenas.
