In the framework of the Pro-Election Bolivia project, on the 15th May 2025, as part of Fundación Construir’s School of Citizen Education and Social Innovation, ECES took part in a training seminar attended by around 40 people, including representatives from civil society organisations, the Electoral Supreme Tribunal, the Ombudsman's Office, journalists, academics and other key electoral stakeholders.
The “School of Electoral Education and Social Innovation: Building democracy and a culture of peace” is an initiative by Fundación Construir that combines training in electoral processes with social innovation tools to strengthen democracy and promote peace among citizens. This approach not only teaches people about the official ways to get involved in politics (like elections), but also encourages values, practices and new ideas that help people work together, solve disagreements peacefully and build better societies that treat everyone fairly.
The School of Electoral Education aims to combine different themes: making electoral knowledge more accessible to everyone by teaching citizens about voting systems, political rights and how elections are run; fighting against disinformation and fake news during elections; promoting social innovation encouraging projects that get citizens involved and using creative teaching methods (like role-playing games); promoting peace and open communication by teaching people how to stop conflicts before they happen, with a focus on human rights and non-violence, including groups like women, young people and indigenous peoples in the processes.
Besides, the social innovation laboratory is an initiative where ideas for solutions to problems like informed participation in the electoral process, political polarisation and other issues are designed.
Fundación Construir is working with ECES to enhance the School of Electoral Education in order to include everyone and make democracy stronger learning ways of teaching based on the LEAD methodology, a successful and copyrighted methodology that has been extensively tested by ECES in a number of other countries previously.
In this context, ECES imparted LEAD training to representatives from civil society organisations, the Electoral Supreme Tribunal, the Ombudsman's Office, journalists, academics and other key electoral stakeholders. ECES’s training expert, Adolfo Cayuso, delivered a series of lectures focusing on four core areas:
- The VUCA methodology as a strategic framework that helps organizations understand and navigate environments characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
- Electoral pedagogy, equipping participants with the tools to educate voters and communities on the mechanics and importance of the electoral process.
- Informed voting, ensuring that citizens have access to reliable information to make conscious choices at the ballot box.
- Understanding the electoral cycle, including the identification of exogenous and endogenous triggers of electoral conflict and the development of sound conflict prevention strategies.
May 20 2025
