CIVIC Lenses

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CITIZENS PARTICIPATE, OBSERVE AND REPORT

Civic Lenses is a project for transparent and accountable political processes through support and popularization of citizen journalism, awareness-raising, civic education and activism of citizens towards human rights, freedom of expression, democracy, and free elections. This is a project that provides training and opportunities for citizens to participate, observe and report on events that are important to them, their local communities and processes at local and national level. This project has grown into an important tool for citizens to remind authorities and officials of their obligation to be transparent and accountable.

Citizen journalists around the world have enormous power. Thanks to the accessible technology and the Internet, they have the opportunity to expose violations and abuses by power holders, and contribute to the strengthening of freedom of expression. If some time ago we had to wait for corrupt media and editors to publish alarming stories on violation of human rights, usually without any success, now we can do this ourselves, with the help of our smart phones and social networks. These days, citizen journalists are recording short video stories with visibility that easily exceed the circulation of newspapers or the audience of popular TV stations. Human rights violations are not invisible anymore; they may easily and promptly become known to public, through contributions of citizen journalists.

This project, as is the case with other projects of CIVIL, represents the efforts of the organization to successfully intervene where many others fail. One of the reasons for the success of our projects is the genuine and sincere commitment of the organization’s crew, working as one, to create and uphold a civic oriented media resource for development of a democratic society where politicians and officials are demanded to be responsible and accountable.

In times when institutions are still unstable and the rule of law is weak, contributions of citizens who are aware and active, represent a precious asset for the society, and pave the way towards creating conditions for citizen participation in decision making processes and development of democracy as a whole. For citizen participation does not begin with a legislative measure, but with genuine effort to introduce it as a consistent and longstanding policy and practice!

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