Second Term Starts at CSDC Civil Society School

The new term of the Civil Society School will begin in October 2019. The announcement for the applications was launched in August 27 th 2019. The first year of STOK (Civil Society School) had continued from October 2018 to April 2019. 24 CSO representatives participated in the school during these 7 months. 

As the previous term, this term will also be composed of a series of efficiency trainings for civil society organisations in Turkey to create a stronger and more effective civil society. These trainings will aim to endow the civil society organisations with knowledge and ability for doing better field research, collecting data, using these data and knowledge in advocacy and lobbying. In this sense, these training will have the characteristic of a civil society academia, thus it is named as STOK (School of Civil Society) not only because it aims to convey the theoretical knowledge and examples of experience to the CSOs, but also because it requires the continuous participation of the participants in all sessions of trainings throughout all year. There will be seven trainings; each of them will be 3 day-long.

The headlines and brief contents of these each trainings are :

1. The Historical Development of Civil Society in the World and in Turkey and Contemporary Issues: 17-18-19 October

The history of the development of the concept of civil society, and the difference between political society and political society, and the development of the civil society organisations will be discussed during this step of the trainings.

2. Theory of Change Trainings:14-15-16 November

In this meeting of STOK, visions and point of views for creating change in their respective fields will be discussed through several references to different good examples from Turkey and abroad.

3. Social Research and Action Research for CSOs: 19-20-21 December

In this step of STOK, CSOs will be provided with the features, steps and techniques of scientific study and research to obtain correct and valid data and knowledge in their
respective fields. As a technique of research, action research method will be specifically emphasised because of its characteristic of inclusion and participation.

4. Evidence-Based Advocacy Training: 16-17-18 January

After obtaining correct and valid data and valid data and knowledge on their fields, CSOs are expected to use these data and knowledge for performing better advocacy.

This step of STOK aims to provide CSOs the ways and methods of using data and knowledge for advocacy.

5. Lobbying Training: 20-21-22 February

Lobbying is quite important to convey the concerns of CSO to the public in general and the public authorities. In this training, methods and tools for performing a better lobbying activity will be discussed.

6. Participatory Methodologies Trainings: 26-27-28 March

In this step, the ways and methods of CSOs’ participation in public decision making will be discussed. The main headlines of the session can be summarised as :

• Participation why?
• Participation for whom
• Participation when and on what?
• Participation how?
• The design of participation process.
• Methods and tools for communication.
• Methods and tools for consultation.
• Methods and tools for active participation.

7. Policy Monitoring, Policy Watchdog, Policy Engagement Trainings: 16-17-18 April

Sustainability of a conducive environment for functioning of civil society has to be monitored by civil society itself, in this session CSO will be provided with the methods and techniques of monitoring of conducive of environment. They will also be provided with the methods of participation in decision making processes in legal and political matters.