Forum for Democracy
A 21st Century Solution

Freedom’s Forum Institute provides financial support for low-income students who enroll for college credit through the Forum for Democracy distance learning program. Our mission is to provide services for low-income and disadvantaged youth by offering educational resources and scholarships in order to empower and encourage students to participate in civic involvement in their communities.

Forum for Democracy teaches each branch of the government separately and also interactively by showing the checks and balances among the three branches. It requires students to assume the roles of senators, congressmen, Supreme Court justices and the president of the United States and their cabinet members so that they can apply their ideas to real world issues. Students will learn the political and social skills necessary to succeed in moving legislation through both houses of congress and onto the president’s desk. To succeed in this forum, students must develop persuasive verbal and written skills, knowledge of key Internet tools and a solid grasp of the political landscape.

Also, success in these forums will require the knowledge of current national and world events and sensitivity to the various cultural, religious, racial and gender-related issues that make up the political landscape of this country. Students must fashion workable solutions that arise when people of different ideological positions have a stake in the final outcomes of legislation.

After rigorous exhibitions of learning before their peer groups, students must move out into communities across this country to perform civic-based service-learning projects, which they document using digital video. These projects are sent to Forum for Democracy, screened for inappropriate or offensive material and then uploaded to its website for viewing. The best of those projects — as judged by all the viewers visiting the site — are eligible for generous scholarships awarded and funded by Forum for Democracy.

Students who successfully participate through our affiliated organizations and who qualify under the United States Health and Human Services Poverty Guidelines are eligible for our program.

Click here to download the Freedoms Forum Institute Overview