The Council of Europe today, during the closing session of the World Forum for Democracy, awarded its Democracy Innovation Award to Generation Democracy. The prize is a reward for efforts to get citizens more involved in public life and the democratic process.

The aim of Generation Democracy is to encourage education for democratic citizenship and human rights education in the Turkish education system. Pilot projects have been conducted in 22 schools spread across 10 provinces of Turkey in order to find an answer to the question: “What makes a school culture more democratic?”.

Seven initiatives were shortlisted for the final vote from the 30 or so presented during the Forum:

• Stork Heinar, a parody of Nazi ideology (Germany) – lab 5
• Chabab 2012, the Circle of Young Democrats of Morocco – lab 16
• the Alsace Youth Parliament – lab 13
• the Blue Ribbon Movement (India), a leadership development programme – lab 1
• Generation Democracy – lab 8
• Youth Create Change, a local governance and civil society development programme in eleven municipalities of the West Bank and Gaza Strip – lab 10
• Young Democracy Creators (France) – lab 21

The Award was handed over by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, and the Deputy Secretary General, Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni, in the presence of Goretti Zavagu Amuriat, from last year’s winner of the Award, the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET).

The next World Forum for Democracy will take place from 18 to 20 November 2015.

Press contact: Estelle Steiner, Spokesperson/Press Officer, tel. +33 3 88 41 33 35