How we can educate children for their civic involvement

Since 2014, the 11even Association has been annually staging the 'Creators of Future' camp as part of a programme targeting students with educational performances who may also want to get involved civically. Since its first edition, less significant in terms of participants and, until recently, for the 2023 edition of the camp, 'Creators of Future' has been gaining ground, yet several aspects have remained constant: 50 high-schoolers are selected annually from the winners in various national and international Olympiads to spend a week, as part of a summer school where they are being challenged by experts in an attempt to make them bring something new to society. The camp is located near Cluj-Napoca, and the selection criteria takes into account the students' interests and abilities in certain fields of activity, as Tudor Vasiliu, the initiator of the aforementioned programme has told us.

Tudor Vasiliu:

" We have four application domains: one is educational, focusing on everything related to school events, such as Olympiads, national and international school contests. Then there is a second one, which is the sports domain, where we are focusing on sports performances. Then there is the cultural domain, which comprises everything related to performance in art and culture and I am talking here about high-school students who may have written a book, who are painting or have obtained good results in art contests. Last but not least is the field of school leadership, which is targeting the students involved in various volunteering activities and are doing great things for society.

The underlying idea for this initiative was that the young people with performances in education are also most capable of obtaining civic performances. 

Tudor Vasiliu: 

"We are trying to offer them as many prospects as possible in a large number of domains through our invitees. We are trying to invite people who have studied or who achieved success abroad and then returned to Romania to bring their contribution and make a change here. Looking back now, out of roughly 900 high-school students who have participated in our programme along the years, I believe that 50%-60% are studying or have studied in prestigious universities abroad. And somehow, we are trying to bring these young people back to Romania on medium and long term. We are encouraging them to study abroad if they believe this will contribute to their professional development. But we underline the need for them to come back to Romania and make a change here as well.

Adding to that, here are a few examples of topics and guests that were seminal for the September 2023 edition of the Creators of Future camp. 

Tudor Vasiliu:

"We had a wide range of topics for debate. For instance, we invited Mihnea Măruță, a journalist and the author of a recently-released volume focusing on digital identity, on how this aspect takes its toll on our being, and on how we relate to the social networks. We also invited Codruța Simina, a journalist focusing on the topic of disinformation and that of the fake news. We also invited Răzvan Petri, and MA student at King's College in England who is working on a very interesting project in Romania, basically targeting teenagers and dealing with politics. With him too, we had a debate on the usefulness of politics and on how those youngsters relate to the political sphere. We also invited the physician Mihai Copăceanu, who organized a debate on drugs, we also invited the rector of Babeș-Bolyai University, Daniel David, who gave a talk on the new Romania. We staged a seminar offered by Răzvan Cherecheș, focusing on innovation since he is a Public Health professor with the University in Cluj-Napoca and we also had two guests who are active on Tik-Tok, yet they try to generate a change for the better, conveying a positive message on this platform. One of them is a legal educator, the other one has developed his own business using this platform.

Although youngsters are sometimes perceived as being indifferent to political and civic involvement, the high school students who convened as part of the Creators of Future program have invalidated such an opinion. 

Tudor Vasiliu:

"Their desire to get involved is a very strong one. Actually, after every edition we in turn seek to get them involved, throughout the schoolyear, in various activities. As regards politics, they may not be that keen ion that, at their age. However, when it comes to civic involvement, they really are anxious to get involved there. We even had, as part of the previous editions, contests on projects that were subsequently financed and implemented. As an outcome of this year's edition as well, we want that, together with some of them, we want to stage, in their communities of origin, several small-scale events so they can invite guests who dares them to change, at once bringing those people begore a younger audience. "

Moreover, Tudor Vasiliu also noticed that, among other things, Romania's high-school students are interested in how they can study abroad, they are also interested in the online ideas and contents and, last but not the least, they also have ecological preoccupations.