Designing projects for local change

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.

Participatory Budget for Light

To give one example, we had a young woman at our workshop who complained that it was dark in the inner courtyard of her tenement house. With our help, she prepared a Participatory Budget project for setting up streetlamps. At the meeting she learned how to calculate project costs and how to make the project description convince people to vote for it. The project won, and the training organizers occasionally come across photos of the newly illuminated courtyard on Facebook, where they can read a lot of positive comments from other residents. The project author is thinking about developing other ideas in the future. Conclusion:

The key to making this practice successful is keeping it local. People design Participatory Budget projects in their scarce spare time, which is too precious for travelling to meetings in other districts. The practice must therefore be provided in close proximity to the target group. Many people find their neighbours more convincing that public officials. That is why we invite experienced neighbours who submitted PB projects to share their knowledge and give prospective project authors some hints. Organising such events at local level also gives local residents an opportunity for establishing cooperation with their neighbours on initiatives other than those related to the Participatory Budget. Thus, we build social ties across our participants’ immediate neighbourhood.

Network Nest Meeting

FAJDP collectively

Short description

Practical information: all opinions are welcome What materials are needed: according to the session Duration: 4 hours Group Size: 10-30 Level of difficulty for learners: non

Since 2016, FAJDP organize House of Associations Open Day event. This activity allows FAJDP to promote Youth Associations work as well as promote FAJDP through the space of its headquarters building – House of Associations. It is also an opportunity to public in general contact with this reality and visit the building.

During this day, where Youth Associations participate in active way, we take the opportunity to think strategically with them through the Network Nest Meeting.