Civic Education for the Ministry of Social Affairs in Tunisia

Within the support provided to the Tunisian Authorities after the NCA election October 2011, IFES, in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs (MSA) of Tunisia, organizes a series of training workshops for MSA staff on democracy, civil and political rights and electoral processes.The MSA, with the support of IFES, will draft an election module for illiterates, which will be incorporated into the regular annual curriculum the MSA uses to teach illiterate populations.
This pilot module will be delivered to illiterates by MSA staff trained by IFES. The goal of IFES project with the MSA on civic education is to increase the level of information received by illiterate voters on election and political processes prior to the next round of elections in order to increase participation in the next electoral events.
The project consists of two training workshops (July & September), developing a curriculum for illiterates, and developing and producing a set of audio/video tools to bring the curriculum and key messages of the project to illiterate people across the country.
The first activity within this project was a four-day training workshop held from 9 – 12 July 2012 at Al Hambra Hotel in Al Hammamet, Tunisia. The workshop covered broad democracy and elections issues delivered from BRIDGE Introductory and civic education Modules.
In the last day and a half, the workshop had a practical focus where participants evaluated the current curriculum and developed ideas and framework for the content of the ‘elections’ module and came up with a broad outline of its structure. Finally they discussed the development of several pedagogical tools (audio-visual) that will assist the MSA teachers to deliver the “elections” module to illiterate voters.
Twenty-two participants from the Adult learning program at the Ministry of Social Affairs (MSA) participated in the 4-day training course. The MSA took the lead on identifying and selecting the participants, covering different geographic areas (19 Governorates) of Tunisia.

The workshop was facilitated by two facilitators: Emad Yousef and Ossama Kamel.