Youth Engagement in Civic Education

Civic education

Civic education is concerned with the content of what citizens ought to know. Despite making up over 50% of the voting age in Fiji, young people are not formally educated on their civic rights and responsibilities.

We hope to develop an online strategy that engages young people online with civic education, particularly by exposing them to their civic rights and responsibilities via social media.

In order to improve this we would like to develop a social media strategy directed at young people in Fiji. This could be used by young people to get information about their civic rights and responsibilities, take lessons or even access a workshop tool kit that could easily be adopted by youth or NGO groups.

A standard definition of corruption is “the use of public office for private gain”. With a level of civic education being made available to young people here in Fiji, youth would be informed of various ways of dealing with corruption. The provision of opportunities for youth to know about their civic rights and responsibilities can empower them to become leaders in the anti corruption movement. We have to be able to reach people at a level where they are capable of not only receiving, but believing the information we have for them, as of right now, for a huge number of youth, Facebook and Twitter, is that level.