Africtivistes is a Pan-African network bringing together organisations and agents of change to strengthen democratic values, human rights, and good governance through the use of digital and new technologies.
Why Africtivistes?
- The global trend suggests that political engagement and civic participation of civil societies, particularly among the youth, appear to be declining. However, in Africa, the last decade has seen a surge of significant successful mobilisations by young people in the fields of democracy and civic participation. These mobilisations often involve Civic Tech.
- On the other hand, talented and motivated young individuals who want to engage in the political life of their countries often lack opportunities to do so, which can cause them to lose motivation.
- AfricTivistes CitizenLab is a citizen-oriented initiative aimed at supporting, accompanying, and equipping civil society actors in Benin through training, the development of digital tools, and support for innovation and co-creation.
Objectives and activities
- Strengthening the capacities of young actors in civil society.
- Driving a new dynamic of citizen participation.
- Creating a network of committed actors to identify, study, reflect upon, and propose solutions to socio-political issues through content production, development of tools, and innovative solutions.
- Communicating about the Menu of Possible Commitments.
- Advocating for the commitments of the Youth Democracy Cohort related to the Summit for Democracy and specific to the country’s reality, in order to urge the State to commit to their implementation.
Activity 1: Setting up the project team
A call for applications will be launched to select 8 young women and 7 young men – activists, intellectuals, bloggers, journalists, etc. – who will coordinate the project in the country.
Activity 2: Organization of theoretical and practical training for the country team
AfricTivistes trainers’ team will conduct a capacity-strengthening training session for the 15 young members of the AfricTivistes CitizenLab project team.
Activity 3: Deployment of CitizenLab through the design and implementation of digital solutions
The online platform will be developed and the CitizenLab will propose, design, and deploy digital content and applications to address citizen demands while contributing to participatory democracy.
Activity 4:
Production and publication of content and information sheets
The CitizenLab project team will produce and publish valuable content such as podcasts, videos and information sheets on several topics such as civic engagement, political participation, participative democracy as well as on the Menu of Possible Commitments.
Activity 5: Trainings on civic engagement and citizen participation throughout the country
The country team will train 75 young individuals in the themes of civic engagement, citizen participation, advocacy, and participatory democracy. The objective is to equip those young people with the ability to develop and lead a communication and advocacy campaign on the Menu of Possible Commitments.
Activity 6: Online communication and advocacy campaigns on the Menu of Possible Commitments
The CitizenLab team, together with the 75 trained young people will build, organise and implement a communication and advocacy strategy around the Menu of Commitments.
Main deliverables
- A team of 15 activists, journalists and bloggers trained on civic engagement and citizen participation, advocacy, writing techniques, and multimedia content production.
- 1 content platform created and managed by the country’s Citizen Think Tank.
- 1 database of studies made available and downloadable.
- Multimedia productions gathered on civic engagement, citizen participation, and participatory democracy.
- A citizen network comprising more than 90 African change-makers supporting the commitments of the Youth Cohort is created.
- 75 young individuals trained on civic engagement and citizen participation and equipped with knowledge on the Menu of Commitments and advocacy.
- Government sensitised about the Menu of Possible Commitments and adopting certain commitments.
Don’t miss any of their activities