Born from the dialogue between SUMANDO Argentina and Generation Citizen (United States), two civil society organizations that develop pedagogical strategies for civic education to incentivize the youth’s civic participation, MVMP was an international cooperation project supported by the American Embassy in Argentina.

During 2018 an exchange in curricula and pedagogical experiences took place through the visit of both NGOs’ delegates to schools in Argentina and the United States to observe the respective Youth programs. In our visit to California, two Demos experiences were carried out fully translated into English, and adapted to American democratic references and institutions, showing the Program’s adaptation and internationalization capacity and relevance for diverse audiences. Furthermore, in order to analyze the participation of first-time voters in the United States and Argentina’s elections, we organized the Round-table “Youth-Vote: views and thoughts of the Argentine experience”, setting a precedent in enabling a gathering between the public sectors (National Electoral Chamber, Information and Electoral Training Department at the National Electoral Department, Human Rights Civic Culture National Department, Justice and Human Rights Ministry, Political and Electoral Reform General Department, City of Buenos Aires Government), Universidad del Salvador experts and civil society actors working on Youth Vote, such as FundaEdu and Fundación Democracia en Red. Young people’s electoral participation trends and new voters training were discussed, debating young people’s civic socialization and low voter turnout consequences in the US in contrast to Argentina’s. SUMANDO Argentina shared qualitative data over Youth’s perspective of voting and GC introduce their Vote16USA campaign to lower the voting age in local elections. 

We develop workshops and playful approaches to engage schools with issues of gender, environment, and participation. Some of our activities involve:

• Gender: our role-play workshop “How we see and think ourselves: approaching our own identity. Tools to think and see oneself beyond stereotypes” engages the body, imagination and empathy to understand the link between gender constructions and rights’ access.
• Environment: “Healthy environment: recognizing ourselves in the urban context as agents of impact” engages play to see the relation between individual responsibility and environmental impact.
• Rap-debate: our rap strategy helps youth debate matters that involve difficult topics such as compulsory secondary schooling, mandatory voting at the age of 18, civic engagement in their communities, from a musical and non academic environment where words and personal experiences are central.
• Movie-debate: we engage social and political debate over contemporary movies, attending the cinema with large groups and discussing human and collective agency over the film’s drama.

The Guide for Youth led Community Projects is an orientation handbook for the self-management of projects that impact communities. Aimed at young people to take action in their communities, either through school or other groups (scouts, friends, sports gymnasiums, among others). It is also a useful tool for educators or guides that oversee Spaces of Institutional Definition (EDI, for its acronym in Spanish), open space for school cohabitation and participation between young people.

We have two Guides: the Guía de proyectos comunitarios de jóvenes (Guide for Youth led community projects) y the Guía de proyectos comunitarios ambientales de jóvenes (Guide for Youth led environmental community projects)