We are very pleased to welcome you to this edition of our bimonthly newsletter.

Many things have happened since the integration of the initial team of Via Education. The number of projects, their scope and influence has increased, and an extraordinary team of researchers has been consolidated.

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- The debate is open, how to improve and maintain the validity of the democratic system that our countries now enjoy? how to expand social citizenship? how to reduce poverty and inequality that remain as the great stain and threat to this democratic system? how to extend the policy? or how to recover the public debate and participation of the people? -

Ideas and contributions: Democracy in Latin America, UNDP 2004.

This year, Ernesto Schiefelbein (Chile) has become the first person from the international community to receive the "Alumni Award for Outstaning Contribution to Education" at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The year 2008 was rich in terms of new learning experiences. One of the most interesting was undoubtedly the participation of VIA Education representing Mexico as one of the 22 countries in the Hemispheric Course for the Evaluation of Policies and Programs in Education for Democratic Citizenship.

This course is part of the Inter-American Program on Education for Democratic Values and Practices, an official alliance adopted by the Ministers of Education of the OAS member states at the Fourth Meeting of Ministers of Education of Trinidad and Tobago in August, 2005. The program aims to promote a democratic culture through education by linking the development of research, professional development and educational resources and information exchange in the Americas. The Program supports and builds on significant ongoing efforts at the local, national and international formal and non-formal democracy education.

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The course of 16 weeks duration was designed with high academic and documental standards by a distinguished group of specialists convened by the OAS. What amount and quality of readings on programs of democratic citizenship around the world and their evaluation techniques! Most of the course was on-line and the final retreat was in the fascinating city of Antigua in Guatemala.

The main goal of this course is to build regional capacity for the evaluation of policies and programs in education for democratic citizenship (EDC) and related areas. It also seeks to encourage the formation of collaborative networks among participants from member countries of the OAS, which help to make the evaluation plans more effective and sustainable. Colleagues from 22 countries met at the Hotel-Museum Santo Domingo - what an incredible place! - for about 3 days to discuss the models and effective evaluation proposals used in the programs and policies of citizenship education. This course is particularly relevant to the team of VIA Education because it is completely useful to implement in the research-evaluation programs in which we are working on.

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