About
Ongoing Projects
The Ratiu Democracy Centre has currently in focus programmes that cover the areas of legal education and youth participation.
LEGAL ACADEMY
The Ratiu Democracy Centre joined in 2019 Legal Academy, a pilot project of VeDem Just, reuniting 30 students from Romania in a Legal Education workshop and a summer camp. Through a series of learning-by-doing activities, the participants developed their argumentation skills and gained new knowledge on topics like digital crimes, bullying, drug consumption effects, as well as rights and responsibilities. Within the same project, 20 teachers attended a separate workshop, on the topic of teaching Legal Education.
The project will be continued with regular events for students and teachers who will further promote it in their own communities. A network will thus result and relevant information will be further passed peer-to-peer through local initiatives.
VeDem Just launched Legal Academy with the purpose of educating the young generation, making youth aware of their rights and responsibilities, able to understand how the legal system in Romania works and to act as responsible and active citizens.
CHANGE ARCHITECTS
Change Architects is an initiative of All Grow Romania, aiming to build a space where youth become “the architects” of their own future. The program ecosystem fosters change makers and triggers a ripple effect in the communities where they work, involving both students and teachers.
In 2019, the Ratiu Democracy Centre became a partner in the Innovative Teacher’s Accelerator, which is the third part of the Change Architects program for teachers. A group of 12 teachers from different communities in Romania attended the three-day workshop, where they were involved in co-designing a multipliers strategy, as well as an action plan for scaling student-led community projects by using the design thinking method.
The workshop enhances teachers’ skills and designs a strategy to leverage their experience and networks. In this manner, it attracts and trains teachers who have the potential and who will to create change in their own classrooms and communities. Facilitation methods are used, as well as a social entrepreneurial approach.
News
The 2020 Elisabeth Pilkington Ratiu Mental Health Award
Together with the Ratiu Family Charitable Foundation, the Ratiu Democracy Centre is pleased to announce the recipient of the Elisabeth Pilkington Ratiu Mental Health Award.
Nominated for her effort to increase the quality of life of individuals with neuro-psychic disabilities, Ana Mariana Ilieș is the Founder of the Association for the Protection and Assistance of Neuro-Psychic Disabled, “Sf. Maria” Day Center in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Read more details about the 2020 Awardee and the Award here.
The 2020 Ion Ratiu Journalism Award
The Ratiu Family Charitable Foundation, the Ratiu Democracy Centre and the Ratiu Forum are pleased to announce the 2020 Recipient of the Ion Ratiu Journalism Award. Diana Oncioiu, reporter at the alternative publication Dela0 and also a member of the Să Fie Lumină team, has been nominated for her investigation regarding the trialing of sexual abuses against minors by Romanian courts. Diana Oncioiu sheds a light on a painful reality in Romanian courts: the manner in which sexual abuses against minor victims are trialed and the tendency of judges to assume that sexual relations took place also with the acceptance of the child-victim. This is possible in a system that assigns blame to the victim, despite the condemnation of the Romanian State by the European Court for Human Rights, which concluded that the Romanian criminal-law system had failed to legally protect children against degrading treatment and to pursue the best interests of minors in the administration of justice.
The investigation can be read here.
