Citizens have a role to play to build a better, democratic society and developing the skills and attitudes of active citizenship is crucial. Active citizens not only know their rights and responsibilities but they also show solidarity with other people and are ready to give something back to society. Developing active citizenship and civic competences should be an integral policy for ANY Maltese Government.
The establishment of a Youth Forum, and a local youth councillor system with established term dates (2 years) mirroring the current local council set ups should be introduced. Worldwide, the amount of youth moving into the Political landscape is decreasing (http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/10/economist-explains-24). We risk a complete political destabilisation within the next few terms, of which now is the right time to act.
The encouragement of politics and the education surrounding it should be at least at a minimum a weekly class at school surrounding Active Citizenship. The Promoting of ethical and respectful debate/ dialogue and sharing of opinions (each are mutually exclusive but can be mixed up) should be a top priority. This, in my opinion, would wean out the current climate of mudslinging that children are being brought up on, and would intern create a more robust political landscape in Malta.
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation