Civitas @ Prague.1995

Prague was five hours away by car. The ring of fighting around Sarajevo made driving impossible. Grebo’s was a journey through darkness, through tunnels and over the mountains, almost all on foot.

Three days later, Grebo related his ordeal to American journalist Jon Roe as they stood dwarfed by the grandeur of the 40-foot-tall ceiling of the reception hall of Prague Castle. The Serb freedom fighter was just one of 425 other participants from 52 countries who came to learn – and tell – about civic democracy at Civitas@Prague.1995.

Grebo had come to hear others talk about the fight to keep democracy alive. And from some American journalists, he heard about the fight to breathe life into democracy.

The four-day conference, sponsored June 2-6 by the U.S. Information Agency and the California-based Center for Civic Education, was designed to bring together people from re-emerging democracies of Eastern and Central Europe with established democracies of Western Europe and North America. It acknowledged the grassroots efforts to reignite citizenship, including the efforts of civic journalism around the world. Conference organizers said there are tentative plans to hold a similar conference in Latin America.

In sessions held in the same parliament building once used by the Czech Communist regime, educators and others interested in civic life pleaded for the need to give the next generation the tools they need to keep democracy thriving in their nations.

Ed Fouhy, executive director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, led a panel that explored the efforts of Wichita’s “People Project,” the San Francisco “Voice of the Voter” 1994 election effort, and Britain’s Channel 4 cooperative project on deliberative polling.

Fouhy also led a hypothetical session where civic journalism techniques were used to diffuse a potentially violent situation fueled by ethnic factions – a distinctly European situation that Fouhy modeled on a race relations case in Charlotte, NC.

For more information about Civitas @Prague.1995, contact the U.S. Information Agency, Washington, 202-619-4355; or the Center for Civic Education, Calabasas, Calif., 818-591-9321.