Values of Citizenship

by Nabil Sisostres, TFD Network Coordinator

From 18-21 May, TFD organized a four-day workshop to discuss values of citizenship.The attendance were 24 from 11 network member organizations.

From the point of view that citizenship is a right and a duty, we looked at four core values that bring about the meaning of citizenship. What follows below are the key points of our reflections.

Equality

The constitution and law should focus on the value of Equality between all citizens without differentiation between a man and a woman, or between rich and poor, or between Muslims and Christians because as we all have the same rights and the same same duties.

Participation
The nation is like a company and all citizens are partners in it. This means that they should encourage the nation to involve all its citizens in different activities of life be it political, social, economical etc. Also, the members of Parliament should be chosen in a just, democratic, and transparent way.

Freedom
Citizens should feel free in their country: free in choosing the members of the local council, of Parliament etc., with a true and fair competition among Representatives.

Responsibility

Citizens have a responsibility to develop their country. Unfortunately many citizens ignore this responsibility, and some families do not care for the concept of volunteerism. They consider it none of their business.

Miscellaneous

These reflections led to a number of other topics of deliberations. It took a full day of discussing with and listening to opinions from the participants about the term democracy, for example, and the question how we can make this term a reality in our life and live with it. Also elections, political parties, free press, unions, parliament were debated, and issues from the reality were raised .

As a whole it was a fruitful workshop. TFD is going to design a training manual with all the tools and information needed to work with villagers at the grassroots level.

Everyone stands to see How to build our Glory Pyramid builders said It is a hard mission Glory is a great thing No one can deprive me -- Hafez Ibrahim, the Poet of the Nile (1872–1932)