Revive Civility Youth Project

Revive Civility - Our Democracy Depends On It!

The Problem

The lack of civility at every level of our society. Family members against family members. Folks who have been in the same church for years are leaving those communities. Politicians are divided by ideology instead of making good decisions for those they serve. Even school-aged children are being effected by the lack of uncivility in our country. Either by seeing adults argue and call each other names or at school from their peers. In fact, teachers and educational instructors are ringing the arlarm because they notice this happening at school and want to resolve as best they can before it gets worse. We believe the youth can and will lead the way and make a difference if their voices are heard.

The Solution

We are bringing young people together with a texting platform to discuss the issues that divide us and their ideas and goals for how to manage them. Text Talk Revive Civility for Youth helps facilitate the discussion and allows differing points of view to be validated. Small groups of 4-6 people discuss specific topics around civility (or lack of it) in their lives. Their answers are texted and the stats of their discussions are compiled. The most important outcome is that they are being guided by a trained facilitator to really talk with one another about difficult topics. Through this platform we are teaching and encouraging our youth to learn and build skills on how to have civil dialogue with their peers and elders.

Text, Talk, Revive Civility: A text-messaging platform that facilitates face-to-face conversations in small groups. Two versions are available: one geared toward middle and high school students and the other geared toward adults.

Stage of Development

  • Early Stage
  • Established Prototype
  • Scaling
  • Other

Organization to Receive Funds

National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD) - University of Arizona

This project was nominated by: