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NEWS SERVICES |
| For immediate use |
Oct.6, 2003 -- No. 519 |
Forum to show how the Greater
Mecklenburg region compares to rest of the stateCHAPEL HILL -- On Oct. 16, residents of Mecklenburg and the surrounding counties have the opportunity to shape the future of citizenship in North Carolina by participating in the Greater Mecklenburg Regional Community Forum in Charlotte. The forum will be held from 5:00–8:30 p.m. at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center, and the public is invited. Complimentary dinner and dessert will be served.
Forum participants will learn how the Greater Mecklenburg region compares to the rest of the state in civic education and engagement. Such regional comparisons include the finding that youth in the Greater Mecklenburg region have the greatest confidence in their ability to comment at a public meeting, which is an important civic skill. They are also the most likely in the state to report that their volunteer experiences are arranged by their schools, and many report talking about their volunteerism in the classroom. However, youth in the Greater Mecklenburg region also report the lowest level of newspaper readership among all youth in the state.
Small group discussions will focus on these and other statewide and regional results from the North Carolina Civic Education Consortium’s Civic Index 2003, the first-ever statewide assessment of youth and adult civic education and engagement. Participants will brainstorm on local strategies to improve civic engagement and will also receive a resource guide detailing existing programs that may be helpful in improving civic engagement in their community. Additional information on the forums, including directions to the site, can be found at the Consortium’s Web site, www.civics.org.
Seven other forums are taking place throughout the state this fall. Because the Civic Education Consortium will not be able to reach all of North Carolina’s municipalities through the forums, the Consortium will publish a Community Forum Tool Kit, which is a how-to guide for communities to host their own community forums. These tool kits will be available in Winter 2004.
The forums were planned by a dedicated group of local organizers and the North Carolina Civic Education Consortium, a statewide nonpartisan partnership housed at the School of Government at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The forums have been generously funded by local organizations—Centralina Council of Governments, the City of Charlotte, Foundation For The Carolinas, Kids Voting Mecklenburg County, and Mecklenburg County—as well as state and national foundations—Carnegie Corporation of New York, Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.
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Contact: Leslie Anderson, Special Consultant to the Consortium,
828-252-4913, lesliea@ioa.com; Kelley O’Brien,
Civic Index Project Director, Civic Education Consortium, 919-960-4226, obrien@iogmail.iog.unc.edu;