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Education Has To Be The Forefront of Civics

by frank news

November 20, 2018

April Snape [Hunter College] and Kat Martucci [Fordham] reflect on their roles as Democracy Coaches and educators.

April Snape

I wrote the blog below after my first semester facilitating Action Civics in order to educate young New Yorkers to find their civic voice. Not only did my students have the privilege of creating a new narrative through this program, but I am also fortunate because I have gained the confidence to stand up for what I believe in, too. This confidence has not only helped me in GC, but it has also helped me in school, work and in other areas of my life. Before Generation Citizen, I lacked the ability to speak up on issues that mattered to me in fear of being ridiculed. In addition to my lack of confidence, I also did not have a framework to navigate or explore issues further. Generation Citizen has become a vital factor in my development as a multi faceted leader. Not only has GC prepared me to step into the role of a Chapter Director where I am responsible for managing a Chapter of X volunteers,but GChas also prepared me to step into the role of being a member of GC’s Associate Board. Without Generation Citizen, I am unsure of where I would stand, and what I would fall for. Young women have been struggling to find their political voice because of sexist ideologies that are still prevalent in our society. It’s extremely important to me to be an example to the young women that partake in GC. Beforehand, I was not equipped to take on this leadership position, but being in GC pushed and prepared me to do so.

Serving as a Generation Citizen Democracy Coach, from the Hunter College Chapter, in the fall of 2017 gave me the platform and voice to not only help students learn the importance of being civically engaged, but to aid them in becoming college-ready. Although I was a very bright and promising student, my high-school to college transition was extremely challenging. In my students, I saw a direct reflection of who I was just 4 years ago, as a high school senior.

Like myself, many of them are amongst the first in their families to consider a higher education and I wanted to ensure that their transition was easier and that they had more information than I did.

By exposing Generation Citizen program participants from Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice to my former school, Howard University, I wanted them to know that college is within their reach and that I am a testament that you can make it there and beyond regardless of your family history. At Howard, I teamed up with my former classmate to compose a panel where current students at the University explained the challenges that they encountered during their high school to college transition and at Howard. I also scheduled one-on-one meetings with an admissions counselor to talk about their application.

By bridging this gap, I helped my GC students to redefine the status quo all while learning how to be civically engaged. Thankfully, Generation Citizen gave me the platform to help build a new narrative.

Not only did my students have the privilege of creating a new narrative through this program but I was also fortunate because I gained the confidence to always stand up for what I believe in. This confidence has not only helped me in GC but has helped me in school, work and in other areas of my life. Before Generation Citizen, I lacked the ability to speak up on issues that mattered to me in fear of being ridiculed. In addition to my lack of assertion I also did not have a framework to navigate or explore my issues further. Generation Citizen has become a vital part in my development as a multi faceted leader. Not only have they prepared me to step into the role of a Chapter Director but they have also prepared me to step into the role of being a member of GC’s Associate board. Without Generation Citizen, I am still unsure of where I would stand, and what I would fall for. Young women have been struggling to find their political voice because of sexist ideologies that are still prevalent in our society. It’s extremely important to me to be an example to the young women that partake in GC. Beforehand, I was not equipped to take on a leadership position, but being in GC pushed me to do so.

I want people to know that being a Democracy Coach is so much more than teaching a lesson, it’s about actively changing the atmosphere of each school that you walk into. I never want any student that I encounter to have doubts about their abilities to apply, attend and succeed in a college environment. I also want students to know that being civically and politically engaged is not as frightening as people make it seem. Thankfully, Generation Citizen gave me the opportunity to convey these message.

Kat Martucci

Four years ago, I joined Generation Citizen because I was interested in civics and leadership. Today, I’m still a Democracy Coach because of the ever-increasing necessity of youth engagement in politics. More importantly, I have learned that the core of Generation Citizen is community. It is the community that I have become a part of that sustains the energy and passion I bring every day to the classroom.

Through building relationships with high school students in the community, I learn what they care about the most and which community issues need the government’s attention. Originally, I was focused on developing a unique project, accomplishing our action goals, and impressing judges at Civics Day. Over time, my priority as a Democracy Coach has shifted. While Civics Day is still important, I take the most pride in helping my students; discover which issues matter to them, learn how politics affect their lives, and believe in their agency to make change through strategic civic engagement. The most memorable moments have been when students speak up and share their stories with the confidence that they have the power and tools to make a difference.

Above all, Generation Citizen has taught me to be community-centered in all that I do. After graduation, I plan to continue engaging with my community, wherever that may be. Generation Citizen has taught me that in any form of public service, whether education or policy work, the most important aspect is to ask, listen, and amplify the voices in my community, so that together we can make change.

Waiting For Asylum

by Alexis McGivern

June 25, 2019

Alexis has been championing low-plastic living since 2013. She previously worked on plastic pollution policy solutions for the International Union for Conservation of Nature and is currently conducting research with the Plastic Pollution Emissions Working Group.

In the summer of 2015, the world was inundated with images of the refugee crisis: men, women and children of all ages, with their lives in backpacks and suitcases, making treacherous journeys across boats and closed borders to claim asylum in various European countries.

I was proud when my small town of 2,000 people outside of Geneva, Switzerland, said we would be welcoming 50 asylum seekers, all young men between 18 and 30 years old, predominantly from Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea. A volunteer association was quickly formed, with a group of dedicated members of the community welcoming our new neighbours in ways we thought would help: warm winter clothes, French lessons, football tournaments to blow off steam and encourage new friendships, cooking exchanges and translation for complicated letters from the asylum office.

The asylum system in Switzerland, as it appears to be in most countries, seems to be less the actualisation of an international and ethical obligation to open your doors to those who are fleeing persecution and more of a slow, silent and unidirectional war of attrition. The state met the basic needs of migrants: food, shelter and safety. Beyond that, it seemed as though the asylum process was designed to wear its participants down to the point where they willingly accepted to return to their home countries.

The process of waiting for asylum is laden with anxiety at all stages, with multiple months or even years passing between your initial interview, follow-up appointments and the final decision on whether or not you are able to stay in a country that you may have called “home” (or something like it) for up to ten years in some of the worst case scenarios.

This anxiety is compounded by the fact that asylum seekers, under an “N permit” in Switzerland, are not given the right to (legally) work.

This is justified in a number of ways, including common rhetoric such as the fact that refugees would take work away from Swiss citizens or that there is an uncertainty over how long they will be staying in the country. Regardless of the reasons, this restrictive policy results in a highly motivated, often highly skilled subset of the population barred from contributing economically. This policy not only wastes a huge amount of potential, but also creates and compounds individual asylum seekers feelings of a lack of self-worth and agency.

The lack of a right to work played out like this in our small Swiss town: the shelter where the men slept each night (a converted bomb shelter meant for nuclear fallout and certainly not appropriate for long-term usage) closed each day from 9am to 5pm. Without work to pass the time, the only option was to hang around the small (and rather cramped) day centre, complete with one pool table, a few PCs and some bean bags, or to head to the train station, one of the few spots in town with free WiFi where the guys could catch up with their families or watch funny videos, a welcome distraction from the constant, humming anxiety that way playing in the background of their minds: “How long will I be able to stay here? Should I continue to invest in learning French if I might be sent to another country soon? Will my family ever be able to join me here? Will I ever see my family again?”

Early on, we had a comment from a member of our community along the lines of “hey, they´re out of danger - so what are they complaining about if they have to sit around and watch YouTube videos for a few months of their lives?” All of the asylum seekers I worked with were highly self-enterprising individuals: the first to leave amongst their families, they made the lonely and treacherous journey to pave a path for their loved ones to join them as soon as they could. They were aching to work, not only to use and hone the skills they brought with them, but also out of a deep sense of loyalty to Switzerland for being the country that took them in. I had many conversations in which many men expressed frustration that they were “draining government resources”, stating that they were deeply uncomfortable with having to be in the care of the state for the first time in their lives.

Last year, Mamadou Gassama, a 22-year old Malian refugee, scaled a building to save a child who was dangling from the fourth floor of a Parisian flat. His heroic act was rewarded with a fast-track to French residency and citizenship and a position with the city’s fire and emergency services. Why should refugees need to commit superhuman acts of heroism in order to deserve the right to safe, fair and dignified work?

We are soon coming up on the four-year anniversary of their arrival to Switzerland. For some men, they´ve had the chance to tearfully tell their family the good news: their asylum request has been granted, they can stay in Switzerland. They´ve found apprenticeships, jobs, some of them have even chosen to go back to school (in French, no less!). For those who remain in limbo, waiting with baited breath for the letter from the asylum office that could change their life forever or see their asylum request rejected and their lives thrown into flux once again, not working is simply no longer an option. Though the government gives a monthly stipend, it is not enough to cover a normal, fulfilling life in (extremely expensive) Switzerland. Many of them have transitioned into taking under the table work, sometimes being exploited to work far longer hours than is legal under threat of reporting them to the asylum office. Some men are underutilising their skills in a big way, like Abdul*, an Afghan refugee who worked as a translator for the American army during their occupation and was one of thousands left behind and in danger by an extremely restrictive visa process to enter the United States. He now picks up catering jobs, cooking Afghan food for parties and festivals in and around the Geneva area.

The ability to work can do wonders for the sense of self-worth, mental health and integration of refugees into their new communities. For the state, allowing asylum seekers to work would not only ease economic pressure, but would also promote integration among new communities and would employ the unique and varied skillsets of their new residents. If nothing else, work would also serve as a helpful distraction during an extremely difficult time of processing past traumas, panic and worry about the future, and intense loneliness from being so far away from friends and family. Refugees have beaten all odds to make it to their new homes: the least we can do is give them the right to work.

*Name changed.

Not By Bread Alone

by Chris Walters

June 24, 2019

Chris Walters is a playwright, director and teacher of Drama. You can follow Chris and his work here.

A group of us were having dinner in a local restaurant the other night. We are all volunteers with an NGO operating on one of the Greek islands, which runs a number of projects connected with the refugee crisis, and we were saying goodbye to one of our number who had finished her stint as an interpreter, and was returning to the “real” world, resuming her law studies in the States. Slightly ironic that it was a farewell, as the conversation turned to the arrival the night before of some sixty refugees in an inflatable boat. Another in the group had been one of the people who had helped to pull them out of the water; he normally volunteered at the communal vegetable garden on one of the projects, but he was also part of the rota of people who stayed up all night, maintaining a watch over the coast, looking out for just such events. The mood quietened, we asked about the procedure from that point. After being given blankets and hot drinks, they were given a basic health check, before being taken to be registered and provided with somewhere to stay. I felt humbled. I am a Drama teacher, and felt that my own role was so much more peripheral and inconsequential, in comparison with helping people floundering in the waves in the dark. In those desperate moments of need, James was helping to provide that most pressing and basic need for safety, for security, for food and warmth. While I was literally playing games.

Once that immediate emergency is dealt with, that next stage in the migrants’ desperate litany of traumatic events that form their journey met and overcome, they needed to return to some form of normality, to face the mundane and tedious daily reality that is the migrant’s lot – a bleak encounter, for the most part, with most plotting the next stage of their journey. I work with unaccompanied minors, those least able to determine their own future. Having survived one terrifying experience, tossed and turned by the wind and waves in the dark, they now faced the equally random vagaries of a bureaucracy creaking at the knees. These children and young people, having received food and shelter, albeit of the most basic kind, also needed an education. Even within that, I know that what I am able to offer is rightly regarded as being of a low priority. They need the basics of numeracy and literacy, the ability to communicate in the language of their new home (however temporary they hope that to be).

And yet.

If their souls are not to be irredeemably crushed, they need to move beyond that bare and basic requirement, of words and numbers. They need to play, to sing, to laugh. And it is at this stage that I can at last make my contribution. The benefits of drama as part of a well-rounded education are well-rehearsed (sorry). It goes far beyond its role (sorry again) as the study and practice of a respected art-form. Above all, and uniquely, I would argue, it is social. It demands other people.

If you were washed up alone on a desert island, you might (once you had fed and sheltered yourself) turn to any number of forms of artistic expression. You might fashion a musical instrument, learn to play it, make beautiful music; you might use the natural resources to paint or sculpt. With access to some form of pen and ink, you might write: prose, poetry, an account of your daily life. You might even, for the sheer joy of it, sing or dance. What you would not do, unless you found yourself treading the path to madness, is act. Play a part. Tell a story. For those things, you need other people. Even a one-person show demands an audience.

Think of all those qualities that educators cite when pronouncing the benefits of drama. Communication – verbal, physical, facial. Co-operation – working as a part of a team with a common purpose. Even that most elusive and difficult to measure quality of self-confidence. All of them, I would argue, are social. And they are all part of a return to normality, to living alongside and in harmony with other people. For many, the migrant experience must have been at times a desperate, every man, woman and child for themselves struggle for survival. But they need to move beyond that, and this is when the drama teacher can help, to give them the opportunity to heal and to grow.

It includes that most non-serious of things: laughter. In my previous life as a teacher of an academic, school subject, I sometimes had to remind my students (and myself) that I was not teaching a course in comedy. That would mean abandoning one half of the art, one of the two masks that signify our subject. But laughter is so life-affirming. We laugh a lot in class – at each other, though never (all right, hardly ever) harshly; with each other, as a shared release; and at ourselves. And if there is yet one more thing that I am sure the young migrants have missed, I am sure it is laughter.

Finally, drama (and its cousin, theatre) allows the opportunity for people to reflect, in a safe environment, upon their own experiences; we play others in order to understand ourselves. I am currently working with a group of young Afghans on a greatly edited and adapted version of Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle. Briefly, it tells the story of a refugee, forced to flee her home, and taking with her an abandoned child. Given the probable experiences of the performers – we don’t ask – this does have the potential to invoke trauma. But theatre allows the story to be transformed. It is told as a fairy tale, of baddies mocked and defeated, of goodies cheered. We also take a stylised, frequently comic, theatrical style. And, crucially, our refugee triumphs, saves the day, and the child. And triumph, we hope, trust and pray, is what they will all do.

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