CivWorld is a global interdependence initiative hosted by Demos in New York City, where CivWorld's Founder and President, Dr. Benjamin R. Barber, is a distinguished senior fellow. CivWorld oversees five closely linked projects aimed at raising awareness of the interdependent character of global society and fostering transnational and interdependent solutions to global challenges: Interdependence Day, The Paradigm Project, The Art of Common Space Project, An Interdependence Day Multimedia Project, and The Civic Interdependence Curriculum.

Interdependence Day: Following the horrendous events of September 11, 2001, a group of intellectuals, political leaders and artists from a dozen nations wrote a "Declaration of Interdependence" and founded Interdependence Day, to be held each year on September 12, the day following 9/11, to seek alternatives to terrorism and the war on terrorism, solutions rooted in cooperation and pooled sovereignty rather than national hegemony and unilateralism. Starting in 2003, when a group of 300 persons met at Benjamin Franklin's American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia to plan a course leading from independence to interdependence, an annual forum has been held in a global city - Rome in 2004, Paris in 2005, Casablanca in 2006 and Mexico City in 2007. In 2008, the European Parliament and Brussels' great arts institutions will host Interdependence Day. In 2009, Interdependence Day is provisionally scheduled for Istanbul.

The Paradigm Project: To assure that our work on Interdependence Day yields an ongoing, year-round program, and is rooted in serious research on democratic globalization, CivWorld has developed a substantive project aimed at fostering an international research program focused on an "affirmative globalization paradigm," - a paradigm that will offer a philosophical foundation and practical floor for the realistic democratization of globalism. The research program is reaching out to like-minded organizations around the world willing to engage in common research, debate, conferencing and policy making. To date, cooperating institutions include the Hertie Graduate School in Berlin, the Institute of European and Social Philosophy in Budapest, the Gunpowder Park project in London and the Center for Globalization, Competitiveness and Democracy at the Tec de Monterrey in Mexico City - their common activities being coordinated by CivWorld at D?mos, in New York. Other individual scholars from China, India, Italy, France, Poland, Slovenia, Morocco, Libya, Turkey, Brazil and the United States are active in the global research program.

The Art of Common Space: Art, politics, commerce and culture all unfold in space that is essentially public - civic, common, shared. Our social relationships are sculpted by the architecture and design of space. That is perhaps why architecture is so essentially political, even when it does not intend to be; why culture is common, even when it is insular and parochial; why design speaks to how and even whether we live together. The linkages between art, architecture and design and the manner in which we live our shared political and cultural destinies hence turn out to be determinative in ways that are often invisible but always critical. In CivWorld's joint international research project on the Art of Common Space, a group of artists, urban planners, engineers, democratic theorists and commercial developers explore the many innovative approaches that have emerged in recent years among artists, planners and architects, as well as engineers and policy makers, that utilize art and architecture in thinking about common space and democracy. These approaches include engineering designs that address poverty, ecology and human suffering in the third world as well as cultural paradigms that address anomie, privatization and commercialism in the first world. A first seminar meeting of the research group -- convened with many of the partners involved in the Paradigm Project -- was held at Interdependence Day in Mexico City, (September, 2007) and further international seminars focused on the project are scheduled for London (May, 2008), Brussels (September, 2008 at Interdependence Day), Berlin (October 2008), New York (April, 2009) and Istanbul (September, 2009, at Interdependence Day).

The Civic Interdependence Curriculum: In all countries where it is taught, civic education remains a parochial and nationalist enterprise aimed at cultivating the arts of liberty within rather than among national societies. As a result, otherwise virtuous civic curricula end up undermining an awareness of interdependence and the need for global cooperation and democracy. Arising from CivWorld's Interdependence activities, a small group under the leadership of former City College President Yolanda Moses and Benjamin Barber have developed a "civic interdependence curriculum" meant to be a template for real civic education courses at the high school and college levels. A version of the curriculum has been adapted to meet New York City public school benchmarks, and has been used at Williamsburg Prep in Brooklyn, N.Y.; other schools including Humanities Prep, The High School of Environmental Studies, and Eleanor Roosevelt High School are potential partners in teaching the new curriculum. In addition, a reader has been published under the title The Interdependence Handbook (edited by Benjamin R. Barber and Sondra Myers).

The Interdependence Multimedia Project: CivWorld is working with the media company Projectile Arts on a media dissemination project aimed at educating a broad spectrum of people about the reality of global interdependence and the work done by CivWorld and the Interdependence Day forums. The project has three principal elements: an online video archive & interactive forum, a video podcast series for broadcast on television and the internet, and a feature documentary film to be completed following Interdependence Day VI in Brussels at the end of 2008. These elements will combine to inform the public on the nature and challenges of our globalized world and inspire them to become more engaged in civil society from the empowered perspective of global citizens. Some elements of the program can be seen now at the website www.civworld.blip.tv where extensive video records of previous Interdependence Day are available.

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