SWOT Strength
More people ready to engage in acting for the local community, once they see how easy it is to take up active citizenship.
Weakness
Insufficient promotion of our training. More people could join us, but they probably don’t know about this opportunity.
Opportunities
Establishing cooperation with other groups and institutions interested in quality projects being submitted for Participatory Budget voting.
Threats
No long-term plan and relying on the work of volunteers.
Which aspects are transferable? It is definitely possible to promote and adapt this action model to other areas. The key elements of this practice are: leveraging the experience of authors who have already submitted Participatory Budget projects, focusing on local conditions, flexibility, demonstrating a friendly and understanding approach towards the people who come to us
with their ideas for changing their local surroundings. What we discuss with them is how to design a project that responds to residents’ needs, not “how to complete an application form.” First, we reflect on local needs, next we search for solutions, and only then do we put that idea on paper.
What kind of change is created? It’s easy to observe the change of attitude in participants. Undoubtedly, most people who join the training want to do something positive for their local neighbourhood. Still, many of them come to us with “the very best idea for our district”. The training encourages them to reflect on the problem they want to solve and think about how they can find other people with whom they can cooperate. Another change we observe are improvements in the quality of projects prepared by workshop participants.
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