sylni-gromady-sylna-demokratiya

Strong communities – strong democracy campaign is a joint project of Institute Respublica within Active Community initiative and NGO Resource Center for public participation from Bucharest.

The project aims to engage citizens in decision-making at the local level and promote the exchange of best practices between Ukraine and Romania. Project in both countries is implemented for 6 groups of active citizens (3 groups in Ukraine, in Uzhhorod, Cherkasy, Bohuslav and 3 groups in Bucharest, Romania).

Among participants, one could find representatives of the Institute Respublica, two coordinators of Active Community from Horishni Plavni and Ternopil, two deputy mayors from Horishni Plavni and Ternopil, and 2 journalists.

During the visit, participants from Ukraine learnt useful experience regarding specifics of work of the state authorities of Romania on the local and national level (Ministry of public relations, Ministry of Finance, the district administration of Bucharest, authorities of Brasov), civic organizations and informal groups of citizens.

Also in November 2016 delegation from Romania came to Ukraine to share their experience with the coordinators of All-Ukrainian initiative Active Community.

After the workshop, three communities were chosen to keep the contact and experience exchange with Romanian colleagues on the topic of civic engagement in addressing important issues of the cities.

In 2017 we plan:

Within the project, in 3 different districts of Bucharest and in 3 communities in Ukraine in Cherkasy, Bohuslav, Uzhhorod coordinators of two organizations will create a basis for the development of initiative groups of the city to address the important issues of the community – bicycle infrastructure, parks, beautification, urbanistic development.

The second visit to Romania is also planned with the aim to exchange the experience of the best practices of the two countries. In August 2017, the summary conference on the importance of active involvement of citizens in democratic transformation of the country will take place.

Both organizations Institute Respublica and Resource Center for public participation are members of  European community organizing (ECON network).