How does democracy show up in our everyday lives? Is democracy only about elections, political parties, and state policy? Or can we find it in closer experiences, such as when our opinions are heard, when we receive decent public services, or when we feel safe voicing our views in digital spaces?
These questions are the starting point of Everyday Democracy: Young People Reimagining Digital Democracy, a project run by Pamflet Generasi with support from Yayasan Tifa and the CIVICUS Alliance through the Re-D Fund Cohort 2. Through this project, Pamflet Generasi invites young people to see democracy as something alive and unfolding in everyday life. Not only as a political system, but also as a practice that shapes how we interact, make decisions, access rights, express opinions, and participate in shared life.
In implementation, young people from various regions and backgrounds took part in a series of Democracy Laboratories, discussed their experiences, and developed stories reflecting various democracy issues in Indonesia. The process showed that young people’s experiences are far from uniform. Place of residence, identities such as gender identity, sexual orientation, social and economic conditions, health status, access to technology, and a sense of safety in self-expression all shape a person’s opportunities to participate in democracy.
From this series of learning and collaborative work, Pamflet Generasi developed three knowledge products: the Everyday Democracy Curriculum, the Storytelling Toolkit, and a Zine on Seeing Everyday Democracy. | All three are now available for the public to access and download.
1. Everyday Democracy Curriculum
How can we create democracy learning spaces that are close to young people’s experiences? The Everyday Democracy Curriculum was developed as a participatory and reflective learning guide to help young people understand democracy, recognize various issues in daily life, and reflect on their roles in democratic life.
We hope this curriculum can be used, adapted, and developed according to the context and needs of diverse learning groups.
Kurikulum Lab Demokrasi: Everyday Democracy2. Storytelling Toolkit: Turning Everyday Experiences into Stories for Democracy
Every experience has a story worth hearing. But how do we turn everyday experiences into stories that are meaningful and safe to share?
Storytelling Toolkit is a guide for young people to reflect on personal experiences, connect them to social issues, and develop stories as a form of democratic participation.
This toolkit is expected to be one of the learning resources for young people, communities, facilitators, and organizations that want to use storytelling to strengthen public participation through reflective and safe everyday experiences.
Storytelling Toolkit Lab Demokrasi3. Zine on Seeing Everyday Democracy: What Will Tomorrow Look Like?
What does democracy look like when told through the everyday experiences of young people? This question finds many answers through the works born from the Democracy Laboratory series.
Digital Democracy Laboratory Zine is a platform for presenting the perspectives and creative expressions of young people in making sense of the democratic practices they encounter, question, and experience in daily life. These works were born through learning processes, storytelling workshops, mentoring, and editorial support within the Everyday Democracy project.
These diverse perspectives matter, because no single experience can represent all young people in Indonesia. Each story offers a viewpoint for understanding how democracy is felt and practiced in different life contexts.
Zine Tentang Melihat Demokrasi Sehari-hari: Bagaimana Hidup Besok?Learning, Storytelling, and Continuing to Practice Democracy
These three publications are part of Pamflet Generasi’s efforts to expand spaces for learning, expression, and participation for young people. We believe that encouraging democratic participation also means ensuring the availability of knowledge, safe spaces, and supportive environments. We hope these three publications can be used, shared, and developed further by young people, communities, educators, and civil society organizations. Because democracy is also about how we live, question, and shape shared life every day.
Happy reading and sharing!
These three publications were developed through the Everyday Democracy: Young People Reimagining Digital Democracy project implemented by Pamflet Generasi with support from Yayasan Tifa and the CIVICUS Alliance through Re-D Fund Cohort 2.
