Citizen’s Rising is a project of The Wheel, in partnership with the Carnegie UK Trust.

In October 2015 The Wheel, supported by the Carnegie UK Trust, published the Citizens Rising Report. The report emerged from The People’s Conversation which was a year-long series of “citizen conversations.” Meetings took place in community centres, in the offices of national voluntary organisations, in hotels, arts centres, and in prisons. People taking part responded to the questions, “What is shaping our future?” and “What do citizens expect and what is expected of citizens?”

The report recommended that citizens be resourced and supported, and active citizenship be nurtured through civil society and the education system. It highlighted the need to understand citizenship in its broader, international context, and not just as a technical or legal status.

A series of common themes and one unifying aspiration emerged: in the coming decades the people themselves must be more involved in shaping Irish society.

The People’s Conversation demonstrated the passion people have to get involved in shaping their futures when they are encouraged and supported to do so.

We are now initiating Phase II of this project in a bid to progress some of the issues identified in the report.

This project will require engaging, working with and influencing a broad range of partners working within the sector.

We undertook an analysis of the main recommendations in Citizens Rising and identified how each might be brought forward and who should lead in this work.

Based on this analysis The Wheel and the Carnegie UK Trust will play a convening role to support groups of partners to take action collectively.

Turning the vision into reality

We will work with partners in civil society and politics to make citizenship a key issue in the next General Election. We will seek widespread adoption of a progressive programme of reform inspired by the people’s conversation.