Check Your Head
Inspiring Action > Youth Initiatives > Check Your Head
Check Your Head is a youth-driven organization based in Vancouver that promotes education and action around globalization and social justice. Over the last five years CYH has delivered some 600 workshops, organized several major conferences, and engaged thousands of young people in the name of justice. One of its key initiatives is the Democracy Project. The goal of this project is, ultimately, to develop an educational model and resources to train youth to engage as caring citizens, based on the values and beliefs youth hold about democracy and citizenship.
Young people with disabilities play an important role in the Democracy Project. As members of the Working Group On Democracy and the Advisory Committee, they help steer and coordinate the project. And as participants in workshops and focus groups, they help develop the content from which curriculum will be developed and educational models and methods will emerge.
In addition to its own work, the Democracy Project has spawned new initiatives. Members of the research committee were so excited about the project that they decided to open the dialogues to a broader audience. These spin-off dialogues became known as "The Connections Experiment" and turned into a monthly dialogue, each on a different theme. Topics included: What is Democratic Citizenship?, Art As A Tool for Citizenship; What is Citizenship to Non-citizens?; Media and Democracy; Disability and Citizenship.
Check Your Head recently administered a broad-based campaign to engage young people of BC in the formal political system. The campaign was called Get Your Vote On and sought to encourage eligible 18-34 year olds to first register to vote, then get wise on the issues that matter to them as citizens, and finally vote as informed members in the recent provincial election. The Get Your Vote On campaign was non-partisan and, while the official numbers are not yet in, it is safe to say that thousands more young people contributed to this election than in the recent past.
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Aug 15, 2021
04:54 PM |
democracy rocks |
| Tara |
I think the check your head project is the best idea for right now. Youth need to be educated in what being a citizen actually means. I am starting a democracy club in my school to do this and I am excited!
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