School for Citizenship

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When three years ago I visited Bucharest, I gained a not very favorable impression about the city. It seemed gray and the streets, the buildings, the people were also gray – as they beared upon themselves the burden of the totalitarian past, 70 years of Soviet dictatorship had not definitely stood back. Maybe that’s why the new visit I made to the city, in the past 9 to 12 June, has caused me much surprise. This was a field trip, within the project New Europe – Cities in Transition, in order to visit locally based projects that promote the city as an area of inclusion, sustainability and participation. We were welcomed by members of Zeppelin and, in addition to the Citizenship Academy, were present organizations from Berlin (Mörchenpaprk), London (Paddington Development Trust) and Amsterdam (Pakhuis of Zwijger). Three days have come to realize how Bucharest had radically changed over the […]

Winds of change in Bucharest


Between the 27th and the 30th of May 2016, the Pakhuis de Zwijger foundation, in the Netherlands, promoted the meeting of more than 600 activists, coming from the four corners of Europe. Because they are normally involved in democratization actions of the cities, as spaces of inclusion, prosperity and resilience, they are called as the “City Makers”. It was during the “City  Makers Summit” that they met, to talk about the main problems of their cities, and the practices that they have been developing, in order to solve them.     City Makers   Visit to the centre of Zaanstad, which was complete renovated in the last 5 years, looking to offer more inclusion, functionality and visual beauty. This Summit had two main goals. The first one was to provide field trips to participants to Dutch local based projects or initiatives, with actions developed in urban context, regarding the improvement of the […]

Let us make an Europe of Democracy



Synthesis by Igor Marko Photos @ Academia Cidadã and participants of the Master Class   The highly challenging urban regeneration case-study was focused on one of Lisbon’s oldest districts – Mouraria.   Lisbon Masterclass #1 – Exploring Mouraria – site analysis, observation and mapping   Paula Marques, councilwoman for Housing of the Municipality of Lisbon, during the Master Class’s opening   Mouraria originated as a 13th century Moorish neighbourhood and remained a marginal downtown area. Nowadays, parts of Mouraria are affected by tourism, others are still deprived with high levels of migrant population and social housing. Cheap property prices and proximity to other tourist destinations (Alfama, Castelo) raise realistic assumptions that Mouraria will face large influx of investment in real estate and tourism infrastructure, resulting in gentrification.   Field trip to historic centre of Lisbon, promoted by Lisbon Sustainable Tourism   Lisboa Masterclass # 2 – Methods and Processes – […]

Master Class “City Making and Tourism Gentrification”


April 15 – 22 I Mouraria, Lisbon The project “Tourism Gentrification and City-making” is promoted by Stadslab (Fontys – University of Applied Sciences, Tilburg, NL), in partnership with Academia Cidadã. The objectives of the Master Class are to provide insight into the impact of mass tourism on public space, urban development and the daily urban life of the citizens in Lisbon and to develop alternative scenarios for a more balanced urban development to avoid excessive real estate speculation, social and economic segregation, lack of accessible urban services and public space and disappearance of affordable housing. The intervention area of the Master Class will be the district of Mouraria.   April 18 I 12h00 I Centro de Inovação da Mouraria Lecture: Placemaking and Sustainable Urban Development, by Igor Marko, Marko&Placemakers London FREE ENTRY Relationship to a place is often disrupted through social, political or economic forces with direct impact on the […]

Master Class “City Making and Tourism Gentrification”



Date: 19 march Time: 11h30-15h Pressing issues mark the present days and it’s very important that we all know what they are about and how can we contribute to solve them. We know there are a lot of people that have good ideas and realize what gaps there are in our society. Here at Citizenship Academy (CA) we want to give people tools and help them to take action. We would also like to introduce more people to the CA.  We are looking for students and other interested citizens in taking part in projects that want to improve democratic society. The main goal of what we do is to empower citizens to take more action in the defense and exercise of their rights and democratic values and to be more conscious about what is happening in society. This workshop will be also a fun way to open your eyes and make […]

Workshop: Empower » Change


 April 15 – 22 I Mouraria, Lisbon   The project “Tourism Gentrification and City-making” is promoted by Stadslab (Fontys – University of Applied Sciences, Tilburg, NL), in partnership with Academia Cidadã.   The objectives of the Master Class are: – to provide insight into the impact of mass tourism on public space, urban development and the daily urban life of the citizens in Lisbon; – to develop alternative scenarios for a more balanced urban development to avoid excessive real estate speculation, social and economic segregation, lack of accessible urban services and public space and disappearance of affordable housing. The intervention area of the Master Class will be the district of Mouraria.   For more information and application, please enter here.

Master Class “Tourism Gentrification and City-making”



Sorry, this entry is only available in Português. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language. O Algarve fervilhou de ideias, troca de experiências activistas e de democracia participativa. A Academia Cidadã foi convidada pela ECOS a participar na Conferência Internacional do projecto Round Trip e não podíamos faltar!   Toda a informação sobre este evento, que começou dia 25 e decorreu até 27, pode ser encontrada aqui  

(Português) Loulé a ferver com activistas de toda a Europa


In 2014, Pakhuis de Zwijger (cultural organization in the city of Amsterdam) came up with the idea of Metropolitan Field Trips. Cities are constantly in change, new initiatives arise and try to answer to several question on how to become city-owners and how to participate in their evolution. During the Field Trips, on the biggest european cities, the participants learn about diverse approaches on base initiative and about the relation between bottom-up city makers, planning agents, local government and other institutions. Field Trips have, therefore, as a goal a better understanding of the whole process of transition and they are an opportunity to exchange knowledge between partners in Europe. The program started at 4 p.m on the 8th, with the meeting point for the welcoming at Holzmarkt. Holzmarkt is located in an old abandoned area at the Spree waterfront. It was destined to be sold as part of the project […]

The Citizenship Academy in a transitional Berlin



The Citizenship Academy was in Hungary, from 16 to 17 november, in a reunion between hungarian and international organizations from civil society, and it got to know more about the recent atacks and threats done by the nacionalist right-wing government of Budapest. We are creating ties and common strategies to fight against this atack (which includes unfounded accusations to NGO’s, police searches without a warrant at their headquarters, constant defamation in the press and trying to block international funds to get to the associations working for the defense of democracy, refugee rights, LGBT people, Roma and other minorities) and to learn how to avoid similar acts in our countries. A lot of these acquirements will be transmitted in workshops that will be held in severous highschools in Portugal, and they aim to empower youngsters to fight for their civic rights.   This meeting and workshops are part of the project Citizen-Rights of international partnership. Veronika […]

We were in Hungary (learning to) defending Democracy


In a context of economic crisis and social emergency present in more and more regions of the European Union, it is important to think about solutions that, more than helping people in trouble to overcome their financial problems, solutions that help to create innovative forms of social organization , alternatives to the ones that capitalist system provide us. At the Congress of Solidarity Economics, the SOLIKON 2015, which took place in Berlin from 10 to 13 september, it was intended to share and discuss different approaches, visions and pratics about new ways of economic activity, based on solidarity and sustainability. The Citizenship Academy was there! Click here to read the rest of the article.

SOLIKON, creating alternatives from Lisbon to Berlin