Week of 9/19 Events

Mon 9/19 (3:30pm) - Civic Engagement Discussion with Eric Bjornlund

Please tune in online at the following link for this discussion as the American Corner will close early: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=134186210013402

Eric Bjornlund Bio:

Eric Bjornlund is co-founder and principal of Democracy International. A lawyer and development professional with two decades of international experience, Mr. Bjornlund has designed, managed, and evaluated democratic development programs in 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East. He has worked in the areas of international and domestic election monitoring, election systems and administration, political party building, legislative development, constitutional and legal reform, decentralization, women’s political empowerment, civil-military relations, civic and voter education, and civil society advocacy. He has extensive experience with assessments, evaluations, project designs, democracy assistance studies, and survey research and has led projects in emerging democracies, semi authoritarian countries, post conflict societies, and failed and failing states.

From 1989 to 2000, Mr. Bjornlund worked for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) in various senior positions in Washington and overseas. In the Middle East, in 1995-96, Mr. Bjornlund was the NDI Director in the Palestinian Territories, based in East Jerusalem and Gaza. He directed civic education and election monitoring programs for transitional Palestinian elections in January 1996, culminating in an international delegation led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He developed the prototype Civic Forum program, an ongoing civic education network of several thousand Palestinians. In a similar role as NDI Country Director in Indonesia in 1999-2000 and Carter Center Country Director in Indonesia in 2004, Mr. Bjornlund developed and supervised a multiyear project in support of a democratic transition that in many ways serves as a model for ongoing transitions in the Middle East. The program included focus on domestic and international election monitoring, constitutional and law reform, political party development, legislative process, decentralization and regional autonomy, civil-military relations, and civil society advocacy.
Mr. Bjornlund has written and spoken extensively about transitional and post conflict elections, democratization, legal reform, and international democracy promotion. He is author of Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Building Democracy (Washington, Baltimore and London: Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), which explores the history and evolution of international and domestic election monitoring and offers insight into how the international community can more successfully advance democracy around the world.
Mr. Bjornlund has testified on many occasions before Congress and the United Nations and has spoken at conferences and universities throughout the world. He has served as an expert on election commissions and election monitoring for the U.S. State Department and has appeared on television and radio in the U.S. and abroad, including on the BBC, C-SPAN, CNN, National Public Radio, Voice of America, and other media outlets.
Mr. Bjornlund holds a J.D. from Columbia University, an M.P.A. from John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a B.A. magna cum laude from Williams College.

Mon 9/19 (6pm) - AC Civic Awareness and Engagement Video Competition Deadline

Civic Awareness and Engagement Video Competition

Rules of the Game:

The American Corner in Tunis is announcing a video contest as part of its Civic Empowerment Month. To enter, please create an original (your own work not taken from others) short film on the theme of civic awareness and engagement of no more than 5 minutes to win a spot in a two-day videography workshop led by international multimedia trainer, Karl Idsvoog on September 26-27. The winner will also receive a certificate and 50 TD. The video submission deadline will be Monday, September 19. You can submit your video by posting a youtube/dailymotion link to it under the event posting on the American Corner Tunis Facebook group entitled, “AC Civic Awareness and Engagement Video Competition”.

The videos should emphasize civic social commentary and can be done using cell phones, small cameras, or any other device at your disposal. The videos should focus on an issue of civic awareness and engagement. This can include, but is not limited to, civic engagement in post-revolution politics, social engagement in the form of volunteerism, etc. The video should tell a story and inspire future civic awareness and engagement in Tunisia. Any dialogue should be in English or subtitle in English.

Any videos containing plagiarism, submitted later than September 19 at 6:00 pm or that exceed 5 minutes will be automatically disqualified.

Best of luck to you all!

Tue 9/20 (2:30pm) - OSU Tunisia Program Visit to the AC

Come visit a group of American Students who are studying in Tunis through the Oregon State Study abroad program. This will be a casual event where you can meet students coming from a variety of states who are in Tunisia to study Arabic or French.

Wed 9/21 (4pm) Guest Speaker Caitlin Maguire for Rock the Vote International

Rock the Vote's mission is to engage and build political power for young people in our country.

Founded twenty years ago at the intersection of popular culture and politics, Rock the Vote is growing its team and its campaigns in 2011, to support the tidal wave of young people who want to get involved in elections and seize the power of the youth vote to create political and social change.

Over the last two decades, Rock the Vote has registered more young people to vote than any other organization or campaign, and we intend to register and turn out millions more in years to come – and to be the best-informed place online where young people can find out what they need to know before casting a ballot.

After years of declining participation at the polls, a new generation of young voters has arrived. Millions of new voters between the ages of 18 – 29 cast ballots in 2004, 2006, and 2008. Rock the Vote is dedicated to building the political power and clout of the Millennial Generation by registering and turning out young people, by forcing the candidates to campaign to them, and by making politicians pay attention to youth and the issues they care about once in office.

Wed 9/21 (5:30pm) - Civic Awareness and Engagement Video Competition Winner Announcement

Thur 9/22 (5:30pm) - Guest Speaker John Marks on Search for Common Ground

Our mission is to transform the way the world deals with conflict: away from adversarial approaches, toward cooperative solutions.

Our ability to deal with conflict affects how we handle every issue that faces humanity. Whether global in nature, such as poverty, hunger or the environment, or closer to home, such as family or community relations, we face daily challenges to our abilities to deal with conflict constructively. We remain essentially optimistic that, on the whole, history is moving in positive directions.

"There is no conflict that cannot be resolved. Violent conflict is created and sustained by human beings, and it can be ended by human beings." Senator George Mitchell

"The opportunity for cooperation is there, even in our most vexing disputes, if we only bother to look for it." William Raspberry, Washington Post Columnist

By transforming how people deal with conflict, we can make significant strides in addressing the major issues facing the world.

Fri 9/23 (11am) - Presentation by Islam "Lily" Lengliz on a Tunisian Woman's Experience in India Researching the Impact of Malnutrition on Children

Fri 9/23 (3pm) Film Clip from Framework for Democracy + Discussion