I'm from Italy, from Sicily. In my region, one student out of three doesn't complete the obligatory studies. This high rate of school loss in this region is due to two main reasons. The first one is poverty, because family needs them to start to work in the countryside. The second one is a lack of inclusion, that affects a lot of the students’ motivation. In this year, with my association, we did a lot of activities to fight against this problem.

Flickr/Stefan Schmitz. Some rights reserved.In order to achieve a better democracy, we are linking democracy with education. Because we are convinced that in order to have a good democracy we need successful education. And for me, successful education should be the education of everyone, an open education, and an education of responsibilities.

Successful education should be the education of everyone.

School has to teach today's students how to choose. And the most important message that school has to give to today's students is to take care of democracy.

openDemocracy will be at this year's World Forum for Democracy, exploring the relationship between education and democracy with a citizens’ newsroom. Register here.