NiZA has facilitated the production of a new manual for Civic Education and community mobilisation. The aim of the manual is to assist trainers to reach grassroots people more effectively.

10.000 copies of this manual on Participation will be distributed in the Southern African region. The manual is available in English and Portuguese. Its stored in South Africa and the distribution process will start in July 2005.

The manual is produced as a joint effort by trainers from six partner organisations from four different Southern African countries: CHRR and PAC from Malawi, NCA and Civnet from Zimbabwe, Asserco from Mozambique and CBRC from South Africa. This combined effort is know as the Civic Education and community mobilisation cluster or Civcom.

A main bottleneck in Civic Education is to reach grassroots people in an effective way. Further analysis shows that those who deliver the message are the weakest elements in the system. Training, motivation and logistical preparations of volunteer grassroot trainers are often insufficient. Therefore the production of a series of grassroot manuals, improved organisational systems to work with volunteers and a quest for funding were identified as major elements for a regional Civic Education strategy

This manual builds on an earlier manual on civic education, which was highly successful in promoting democracy in Malawi. It was called Gwira Mpini Kwacha: Civic Education to build local democracy. This new manual hopes to show that active participation is in fact an important strategy to reduce poverty.

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