Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in the summer of 2022 undergraduate student Vikki Hengelbrok (C‘23) conducted semi-structured interviews with members and partners of Fundação Gonçalo de Silveira (FGS). In this interview Filipe Martins, an educator at the Catholic University of Portugal in Porto, Portugal, discusses their relationship to FGS and provides details about teaching global citizenship in Portugal.
Could you help me understand how, what citizenship education is like in Portugal? What sort of things do you teach?
Okay. That's a very broad question. It depends on the context. Okay. For example, I am relating to this specific course of citizenship education and that we've created in Vienna do Castelo for this master program. On our syndication, we focus specifically on what is citizenship in terms of concept. The history of the concept and dimensions of the concept of citizenship mostly focus on different kinds of different generations of rights. And then, we focus on the participatory approach to citizenship. So, I think the idea that participation is, it must be linked to citizenship to practice, and it must be in the core of any kind of citizenship education. And then, we try to bring different examples of citizenship education. Projects or practices are approaches by thinking that, can the students to look at time to research different projects in their communities or in their region?
So, we also try to put students to make it into researchers, also and then, critical, and ask them to make critical analysis of different projects. They come there, they find, and they research. And also, we encourage students to design their own small projects of citizenship education that they could put in practice in their own work settings. So, the idea is to have a very practical approach to citizenship education that spans from back to the theoretical background, of course, and debates around a lot of diplomatic situations that are linked to citizenship issues, but then go beyond the conceptual framework and go to the practice field and research and design different practical approaches to citizenship publication that can be put in practice in formal or informal or non-formal educational settings.
I see.
So, this time, this is more or less the design that we developed for this specific training. Then, when I approach or address citizenship education topics in other, more transversal or another thematic courses, I also try to bring some reflection about the concept, which is a concept that most people don't really reflect about. It's a very common sense concept when you bring issues of belonging, access, and rights, and several types of citizenship rights, and the comparative process of citizenship in different countries, for example, this brings a lot of discussion and awareness of different citizenship issues that are not very conscious in daily lives. So, a lot of discussion, but then, also, not focusing only on this conceptual and political reflection, but always trying to go to the, to approach citizenship as a practice. That's something that you need to practice, to put in practice. And this is what makes citizenship alive and ensures that citizenship is still a valid idea in our lives.
And so, we need to bring always the reflection to the participatory approaches to citizenship and to the ways to promote participation, equal opportunities to participate. How can we remove all boundaries that people face in their daily lives in terms of their social and political participation? So, the idea of participation is very close to the way I see, and not only me, a lot of people that I work with, we see citizenship very much linked to this idea of participation. I always bring this to the classes, and to the reflections, and to the training courses.
Yeah. Could you talk a little bit more, we just mentioned about removing the boundaries with people in faith?
Well, for example, if you are training, I don't know, social workers that are going to work with young people that are in residential care units, for example, for a lot of time, I was a consultant. So, consultants of this kind of institutions that in Portugal are still very much coming a lot of young people that face problems in their families of different kinds of problems, removed from the family, the original family, and are placed in residential care facilities specifically designed to take care of young people at risk. But this is something we have a lot in Portugal because we don't have a lot of, how you say, families that, I don't know the term in English, families de curamento, families that can help.
Yeah.
You get it. Yeah. So we have a lot of these institutions, and then, when we work with the teachers that work in the institutions, and we talk about citizenship in terms of their daily practice within inside the institution, in their daily routines, their daily spaces, and for young people to make choices to prepare to work, to organize their activities, to choose their educational path, to choose their leisure time activities. And this is citizenship. And we think a lot about what is preventing young people to participate, because, most of the times, people have an idea that you don't participate because you are not interested. You are lazy. It's this blaming the victim discourse that sometimes justifies the lack of participation.
But if you look at in another way, if you think of participation as something that you need to promote actively and to create structures and proceedings that enhance the opportunity and the spaces to participate. Yes, you can make very meaningful changes in any kind of institutional, or social setting, or group even, or community, for example. So, removing barriers to participation, it's about thinking, how do we think about people? What do we expect of people, and what opportunities and resources can we provide people in order for them to participate more actively? So, it's much about thinking and not only about our mentality, but also about resources and managing resources to make it possible for people to make choices, and to experiment, and to reflect in different ways.
So, I'm just give you an example. We can use this kind of framework for a community setting or a school. I work a lot with schools trying to foster the participation of young people in the daily life of schools, for example, from choosing what's to eat in the cafeteria, how to organize the the spaces of the school, how to organize the timetable, how to choose the activities that the school offers, how to organize the furniture in the classroom, I don't know, whatever it's important for students can be a subject of debate and reflection. Making proposals and deliberative initiatives like assemblies, or voting, or debates, or I don't know. All of this is something that is something natural. And you need to question and to foster and to enhance this kind of mentality and then the way to organize resources in order to create these opportunities to participate. So, and, sometimes, the barriers are, for example, a lack of participatory culture are, for example, discriminatory process that everyone thinks it's natural or, for example, a bad use of financial resources or material resources that can be arranged in another way. And if you do that, you can bring participation from, for the institution, for example.
Okay, and what would you say is, maybe, the most compelling part of FGS methodology?
I think there are two interconnected things that I think are more compelling. One is their collaborative approach in a very humble and welcoming way. They really take it to the letter. They are people I know that best put in practice the idea of collaboration, an idea that a lot of people talk about and defend but struggle a lot to put it into practice. And, I think, yes, and that's why a project like Sinergias, for example, is successful doing it. That because they really know how to make people come together, learn together, and work together, and have fun together. And also, the second most interesting thing, I think, is if this has, is there, how to say, they have a care and things. They really care about each other, and about their partners, and about their collaborators. They really bring an ethics, a practical ethics to their activities and projects that it's based on. Horizontal, power relations, care relations. They respect the rhythms and the particularities of each organization, of each person. They don't, they are not top-down oriented. They are not strict in terms of rules or proceedings. They are, they really have a flexible, welcoming, open, and respectful way, to deal with people and institutions there. I think it's one of the keys for the success of their projects. This is very coherent with the standards they defend in terms of global citizen regulation and education for transformation, which is a term they prefer. This coherence is something rare to find.
Yeah.
And they, I think they really can put it into practice..
It's very nice to work with them because we all have different partners, and it's very rare to find a partner that is so welcoming and so joyful and easygoing. And that doesn't mean you lower your standards in terms of quality. It just means you'll meet people in the middle, and you'll find ways to connect within the differences. That's very nice.
And you work with other sort of similar civil society organizations like, say, in the similar field.
Yes. Currently, not. I don't have another partnership that's so strong and for so long. But yes, I have, within the university and in my opportunities cooperative that I talked about. Of course, we have another partnerships with other NGOs, and yes, and that's why I can compare.
How would you describe these the organizations you work with? What sort of structures are there in place to support these organizations?
Well, I don't know. I'm not so qualified because I'm not an NGO. So, maybe, I'm not so knowledgeable on the sector, but the idea I have, the perception I have is that most NGOs, development NGOs in Portugal, are made up of people that have strong commitment to social and ethical values, not so much political values. I think it's a sector that tries to stay away from political issues and ideologies. That's something that, sometimes, it's a fragility. I don't know if you understand the term, it's something that, I think, they think they could have a more meaningful role as advocacy players and lobby in terms of public policies that they tend not to assume this role because it's a small country; everyone knows everyone. So, if you are too connected with some kind of political ideology, then you may lose something in terms of resources or opportunities, and there may be consequences. So, I think it's a very committed sector.
I think it's a very precarious sector in terms of job conditions, very low pay and with a fragile umbrella structure, which is the national platform from developer NGO. They are, they don't have a very strong political influence, and they don't, they cannot bring. So, our conditions for NGOs to work with, there's limited funding, there's limited capacity to obtain European funding, and the national funding is very restricted. So, there's strong competition for funding. So, it's very hard for small NGOs to thrive and to make projects. The bigger ones are the ones who get most of the funding. So, it's kind of an unequal feel. There are three or four big NGOs that have managed to get most of the funding and small NGOs that cannot grow. It's very hard.
It's a very, well, I don't know how to say, qualified sector people that work in NGO development deals. Most of them have degrees, master's degrees, doctoral degrees. People work in research centers, have connections to other academic institutions. So, it's a very, it's people that really know what they are doing, has experience in the country and abroad, are very much linked to other European networks and other country NGOs. We work a lot in terms of international links and cooperation, but we are very fragile in terms of funding, and the capacity and people are really badly paid. So, there's a lot of turnover, and people that come in and go out don't stay, don't, the people don't make careers in NGOs. There are some people that make it, but a lot of them go away to corporations or to public institutions, if they can.
And then, as a donor, as a teacher, how do you see, you know, education's role in, like, working with NGOs or valuing that sector more?
Well, that's what I'm working for. That's exactly the focus of my current work: to strengthen this connection. Yeah, I think this should be more recognized by public policies as a modus operandi, as a way to do good, meaningful, and the whole integral in citizenship application. You cannot do it in schools alone because most of the teachers are not even trained to think in terms of citizenship education, and to teach, and to address several topics that are connected to citizenship. NGOs are the ones who can do it and have been working in this field a long way. People are very well prepared. So, both in terms of thematically, conceptually, and in terms of methodology, there are people in NGO that are great with active methodology, is active pedagogies, for example, project-based approaches and they can bring this to school, and help teachers, and work with teachers, and bringing very meaningful and strong approaches to citizenship education. So, this partnership should be something that's unquestionable, and that's the way to do citizenship education. This is something that all the giving first steps in Portugal know, this is something we are working in this specific project with the FGS, with the support of the Fundação Gulbenkian, which is also trying to push this agenda.
But I think the government and the public policy communications should put this forward and should create conditions and resources and guidelines to make this a reality. So, I think, as the whole integration sector of formal schools and universities started looking to NGO as national partners in their mission in terms of citizenship education, I think this could strengthen the NGO sector, as well. So, this could be, this would be important.
Yeah, that's a great kind of tying-everything-together point.
Yeah. Yeah.
Those are mainly all of my questions. I don't know if there's anything else you think is important for me to know in talking about this area.
You know, does your research focus on having, like, a screening of global citizenship application in Portugal? Is that what…
Yes, it's about that. And then NGOs, sort of the role in that as, well.
Okay. Well, I don't know. I think when we address sort of important topics in this whole interview, it's very productive, I think. I don't know. I think you choose a very interesting starting point at FGS. Are focusing on how, in other NGOs in Portugal?
No, just FGS mainly.
It's very interesting, there's some particularities in FGS because they have this religious background. But I think they, they've managed it in a very healthy and inclusive way, which is not always the case in Portuguese social institutions that have connections to the church. I think FGS, it's a very inspiring example of how you can connect, how could I say, Christian values, with social equality and justice values in a very positive and transformative and critical way. So, they are not conservative, which is something that, most of the times, connect with church approaches to things. So, they have a lot of...I think it's a combination that's very inspiring and productive in their work. Yeah, I think that's why they keep having projects, and they have a lot of skills, credibility, within the sector and also within the funding agencies. Because they actually, they have a very strong and coherent approach that makes methodology combined very well with the objectives and makes people really feel they are learning and they are doing meaningful things together in their projects. And this is not, so the idea is to focus not only on the outputs but also in the quality of the process. This is something, you've probably heard this already, and that's something they practice a lot. This idea that the process, the quality of the process is as important as the outputs of your project.
Yeah.
Because you learn a lot, and you transform yourself and your institutions along the way. The way you do things, not only in what you do with how you do it. This is something they do very coherently and for so long. They are becoming very well known about this.
Of course, there are some resistance from people and organizations that are more result-oriented. Sometimes, they look at FGS as people who take a lot of time to do things like meetings and debates and reflections. Like, there is some resistance of some people that are more practical, and they are stressed with the outputs and the results. Sometimes, they say, oh, this works very slowly, but this is the key to the success, to their success. So, it's not a corporation management style. A lot of NGOs are going that way. Productivity, visibility, impact-oriented, and activist. Yes, activist, actively and coherently resists that enterprise logic. That is coming to the NGO. Fortunately, every time, more people see the value of this approach. They are not alone. So, that's very important. That's very unique in their Portuguese setting...
