What does Citizen Network believe?

On 7th October, at the Slovakian Independent Living Conference in Bratislava, we launched our Citizenship Manifesto. This sets out our fundamental beliefs and offers a hopeful vision of the future we need to create together.

The Manifesto begins with a poem by Simon Duffy which describes the fundamental problem of our times, we have fallen asleep and accepted dangerous beliefs and toxic values, and we have forgotten that we are citizens:

We fell asleep.
We forgot that they don’t take care of us, we take care of each other. We forgot that it’s the rich who need the poor, not the poor who need the rich. We forgot that politicians work for us, we don’t work for them. We forgot that government doesn’t innovate, people do. We forgot that government doesn’t create wealth, people do. We forgot that government doesn’t know best, people do. We forgot about citizenship, we forgot about families, we forgot about community. We confused good with big. We confused achievement with wealth. We confused love with control. We forgot that the welfare state was built by us, that it belongs to us, and it needs to work for us.
It’s time to wake up.

The Manifesto builds on the 7 keys to citizenship described in Everyday Citizenship:

1. Meaning - we need a life of purpose
2. Freedom - we need to shape our own lives
3. Money - we need the basics to begin
4. Help - we need to help each other
5. Home - we need a place where we belong
6. Community - we need to share our gifts with others
7. Love - we need to give and to feel love

Together we can create a world where everyone is a citizen, everyone has the chance to flourish and create a life of meaning. This is within out power, but only if we are prepared to do the work of citizenship:

1. Inclusion - to welcome others into community
2. Care - to take care of each other
3. Democracy - to make decisions together
4. Justice - to share what we need
5. Nature - to take care of the natural world

Citizen Network helps people to take on this work, but we know we are only one small piece of a much bigger world. This Manifesto is an invitation for all of us to join in, connect and cooperate to make the world of citizenship, what Martin Luther King called the Beloved Community, a reality.

The Manifesto ends with a call for cooperation to carry out this work and a description of Citizen Network’s focus on change at the neighbourhood level.

Take a look — read and download the free pdf in your browser, click the link below.