CIVIC DUTY & RESPONSABILITY
What is civic duty for you? Required by the law. It means related to a town or city, to the people
who live there and to the rights and to the duties they have to fulfil. It is something that everyone needs to
satisfy in order to be an active and respectful part of a town/city, and, ultimately, to be a good citizen of the
society. Examples: to pay taxes, to vote, going to school until the age of 16 (In the United States, attending
school is mandatory. If a student does not attend school, their parents can be fined severely by local
authorities. Most states have established a minimum age that students have to continue studying to.
However, unlike Italy, in the USA, home-schooling also exists.) , expressing opinions through votes during
elections.
People nowadays do not fulfil their civic duties as much as they used to. They tend not vote very much: only
65% of those who were registered actually voted in the last general election. However, by reading the
comments to the article, other reasons that lead people not to vote appear quite evident. Many people
feel that the government of their country is only composed of corrupted people whose only interest is to
get advantages for themselves and not for the population. Therefore, they say that they refuse to express
their vote because they don’t want to support the government or because they think it’s useless. Their
opinions have to be respected, but I don’t agree with them: voting is a right and a duty that’s been
obtained through many sacrifices. Expressing our opinion through vote is probably the only thing we can do
to change something, so we must do it. In my opinion, voting is one of the most important right, but first as
all of women, because we have fought for it and we have to be proud of it.
YOU KNOW THAT IN UK:
What is civic responsibility for you? Good behaviour that everyone should follow. It indicates an
obligation, which can be legal or moral, or even both at the same time.
What can be our responsibilities? As Italian citizens, we have quite a lot of responsibilities. For
example, we have to respect the environment around us by not throwing our rubbish outside of the
garbage bins. We have to respect other people by not shouting when it is not appropriate. There are also a
series of responsibilities we have to conform when we are in public places; for example in hospitals and in
post offices, we have to respect a determined row, in order not to cause trouble to anyone. While we are
driving we have to respect the street code, in order not to harm ourselves and the people around us: we
don't have to pass other cars when a dangerous situation occurs and we have to stop with a red light. At
home, we have to help with the housework, like doing the laundry, washing the floors, doing the ironing
and other similar activities.
We live in a small town, so there aren't these kind of problems. All the citizens do their best for keeping the
city clear, help others in small things and everyone does the recycling. The first one is family because is
what we can define home, in which everything should be in ''the right place''. It also supports us on our life
choices and future projects without discriminate us .
There are also many films created in order to sensitize people about civic responsibility.
This type of film is called a PSA (Public Service Announcement or Public Service Ad) and aims to raise
awareness and change public attitudes and behaviour towards a social issue. Example: the video created by
the city of Melbourne in order to raise awareness amongst its citizens about safety around train tracks. In
my opinion it is very useful.
Here in Italy, we have seen quite a lot of PSAs on television and also in public places (airports, train
stations…), especially concerning safety while driving and blood and organs donation. The first ones aim to
change the behaviour of people when they drive and they are so widespread in order that, hopefully, many
car accidents can be avoided. Sure enough, most of them usually happen because the driver is using his
phone without ear monitors and/or because he is driving without paying attention to some basic rules,
which are very easy to follow and respect.
