Joint Session in Antwerp as seen by French delegation

On March 22, the French delegation of I AM EUROPE project went to Anwerpen to meet the other participants of the project, from Bulgaria, Romania, Sweden, Span, Poland, Germany and Belgium. The goal of the delegations’ first joint meeting was to start a collective reflexion on the notion of European citizenship.

We kicked off by presenting our projects – the civic initiatives that we have developed locally and for which we invited by the Evens foundation to join the project.  The French delegation presented the Civic Factory (Animafac), The European Youth Parliament (PEJ) and the Organisation pour la Souveraineté Populaire (OSP), and learnt in return about other innovative civic projects launched by the participating organisations.

During the lunch time, another gathering took place – the first meeting of the European editorial team consisting of a representative of each delegation and 2 professional journalists. Their objective – to determine the leading lines of the upcoming newspaper I AM EUROPE, articulated around 3 themes: identity, citizenship and participative democracy. The launch of the newspaper – Mid June 2013 !

As the I AM EUROPE project was built on the idea that the citizens’ local initiatives could be the essential motor to reinforce the European identity, we decided to think over the different ways to empower citizens, focusing on several fields of action: housing rights, civic education, or sustainable development. They will be our fields of experimentation during the next meetings.

During the second day, we received Machteld Boussemaere from Belgian movement Ryckevelde Vzw and Jeroen Jochems, from Europe Direct Antwerp. They discussed together what values a state/a society should promote : the freedom, the solidary, the equality… We also learnt more about the Maastricht and Lisbon Treaties and had a short history flashback on the creation of Europe – all this contributed get a more informed overview on the European policies and values. In addition, the goal of these workshops was to clarify the functioning of the EU institutions in order to measure the possible impact of our proposals during the upcoming final conference in Brussels, where all the participants will have an opportunity to dialogue with decision makers.
We finished the day by composing the working groups dedicated to different fields of action and then left Antwerpen excited by all these ideas and encounters. Next stop: Paris !
See You Soon !
Benjamin Fauquet

Joint Session in Antwerp – from the local to the European level

After a series of local citizens meetings in 9 cities, we have finally crossed borders and met face-to-face in Antwerp for the first Joint Session of I AM EUROPE. Every local group was represented by 5 delegates, together with the EVENS foundation organiser's team and facilitators we were with more than 50 people altogether. 

           

We started with exchanging our personal backgrounds. We had first talks on what PARTICIPATION means to us, personally. We  also created a common ground of understanding the project – much still needed to be clarified, many questions remain unanswered for now, but this is a challenge for all participatory projects.  We will discover and develop the uncertain parts of the project together during the next meetings.

We then smoothly went to the carousel of good practices where each delegation had the opportunity to present their „local story” and tools for enhancing citizens’ participation at the local level. That is how we learned the story of Citizens Participation Forum in Bulgaria, the story from Poland about empowering citizens’ participation in a cross-generational approach, the Swedish story of how to make participation easy, not too sophisticated but really effective and fun (wonderful example of Örebro Klassikern!). The delegation from Germany showed us several stories that ended up with talks on topics that do matter for all of us, regardless the age, background, nationality etc. A really practical example of how to encourage people to participate! Mr Kowalski from Brussels presented a variety of approaches and solutions for enhancing participation among migrants.

During the open space we got a bit more room for asking specific questions and for a genuine dialogue, which is not easy to organize in a big group. Some good practices and tools were presented and discussed here in more detail, such as Kod pokoleń (generation code) idea presented by Stefan and Marek from Poland, but there has been also space for discussion launched by citizens. For instance, the Catalan team showed a very citizens perspective on the housing problems in Spain in the times of crisis.

Next day has brought us debates about the overwhelming impact of the EU on our lives facilitated by Jeroen Jochems from Europe Direct Antwerpen and about the values, those personal and European and about how they correspond with the EU policies (facilitated by Machteld Boussemaere – Ryckevelde).

It was a very intense weekend, we had an ambitious schedule that we tried to make happen under a permanent time pressure. Many important issues still remain open, which is a good forecast for the next Joint Session in Paris! See you in one month!

Marta Gawinek - Dagargulia

Project facilitator

Let’s talk about evaluation

When most people think of evaluation, they associate it with something that happens at the end of a project. Then, we look at the project after it's done and decide whether it was a success or not. When designing I AM EUROPE concept we felt that project evaluation actually needed to be an integral part of the project from the beginning, and we were sure that involving stakeholders - people directly connected to and affected by our project – was tremendously important. This is the reason why we decided to use PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION methodology, and invited Susanne Ulrich from Centre for Applied Policy Research in Munich and dr. Tilman Eckloff as our experts to conduct the process throughout the way.

Such a process, as we shall see, is not just a matter of inviting stakeholders to take part.  Involving those who are affected by the project shifts the whole nature of it from something done for a group of people to a real partnership between beneficiaries and project initiators.  Rather than powerless people who are acted on, beneficiaries become the “copilots” of a project, making sure their true wishes and expectations of the project are recognized and addressed.  In I AM EUROPE case, we would like to see that our professional evaluators, project staff, project participants, and representatives of European institutions all become colleagues in an effort to improve the quality of European citizenship.

The first successful Stakeholders meeting in Berlin is behind us. We got to know and took responsibility for the approach of participatory evaluation and managed to develop criteria and indicators of I AM EUROPE success. The interactive and participatory exchange between different stakeholders of the project enabled us to radically rethink who initiates and undertakes the process, and who learns or benefits from the findings. 

Let’s meet at Joint Meetings and find out how our proposals work in practice. See you there!

Joanna Krawczyk

(EF)

A first milestone reached!

In all the 9 participating sites local activists gathered to share their experiences and best practices of their work, by now.  They also engaged in lively discussions about what “I am Europe” means to them and why the project will be interesting and relevant. They reflected upon what they could contribute with to the project and what themes they would like to discuss with the experts and politicians they are going to encounter during the Joint Meetings in Antwerp, Paris and Warsaw and the Final Conference in June in Brussels. The energy and the commitment of the activists is impressive as are their experiences and stories about their local activities: from saving trees, to setting up local community centres, from campaigning for social housing up to activating citizens of different generations, backgrounds and regions to work together.

One event we all look forward to is the first Joint Session in March in Antwerp where all  45 elected delegates get to know each other and their projects, where we start exchanging and learning from each other, in order to get impulses for both – the local work back home as well as the European level where we want to test if and how citizens’ participation is possible. See you soon in Antwerp – where our hosts of Buurtschatten (Neighbourhood Treasures) and Samenlevingsopbouw (Living together in the community) will make sure we will remember Antwerp beyond diamonds and chocolates ;).

  

Steffi Leupold

Project facilitator 

I AM EUROPE on the air!

On Friday 22nd February the Polish Radio dla Ciebie, that broadcasts all over Masovian voivodship in Poland, invited I AM EUROPE to talk about its' project. 

“In the eyes of many,  Europe is considered to be a big bag of money to which only a few have access to” – this is how Robert Łuchniak, the host of the show,  began the broadcast in the “Wieczór RDC” program.   With this statement he referred to the belief that many Poles have, considering the European Union as one big fund.

Joanna Krawczyk (program manager of the Warsaw office of the Evens Foundation, photo) and I (project facilitator) have explained  I AM EUROPE's  primary assumptions – Europe's heart beats with its citizens every day  and active citizens can be motor of change in the European community.

What do we know about the citizens involved in this project? The first experiences from the local meetings in Brussels and Sofia have proven how engagement of individuals at the grass roots can mobilise entire communities – as it is the case in the Polish migrants community in Brussels or cooperation of Balkan Assist with local municipalities in Sofia.

How to bring those good solutions and practices to the European level in order to encourage the European citizens get more involved in EU policy-making? This still remains a question which we hope to be answered in the next months.

Much time was devoted to a discussion about the experiment in which the citizens will test how their problems and important issues can be addressed from the European perspective. Such an experiment may encourage the citizens to take actions and to look for support to their local problems by drawing from European experiences and resources.

Radio dla Ciebie promised to invite I AM EUROPE for another broadcast in autumn to talks about the project results. We are looking forward to it!

Marta Gawinek - Dagargulia

Project facilitator

Enhancing citizens' participation – LCM in Sofia

Citizens of different background, profession and age groups gathered at Balkan Assist for the first I AM EUROPE meeting in Sofia, on 16th February 2013. Talking about their local involvements and the first time they all realised that they wanted to get really engaged in their local community brought them closer together.  It was a perfect start for further discussion.

The host organisation – Balkan Assist-  is well known in Bulgaria for its efforts in enhancing citizens' participation and bringing together different stakeholders  in order to collaborate more effectively. 

Participants in the meeting agreed that enhancing civic participation, supporting  direct democracy, combating citizens' passive attitude... still remain the main areas where further action needs to be taken.  "What needs to be changed in the educational system, how to encourage youth to get involved in their communities  and how to stimulate the Roma minority to play an active part in the society?..." These questions will be discussed during the next local meetings. The delegates to the Joint Sessions will coordinate the process of taking specific actions which  will hopefully lead to a real change.

Deciding on only one particular area for taking action throughout the whole project was not an easy task, as there were many other burning issues:  participation, rights and protection of Bulgarian migrants in Europe, hardly any identification with Europe of the citizens, urbanisation processes in the country... and many others. We hope these issues will be tackled in the next meetings, both local and international. An exchange of good practices in other countries may introduce possible improvements and new ideas in Bulgaria.

The participants are eager to present their good practices and methodologies at the first Joint Session in Antwerp:  Future Search Conference, community councils in villages and urban  neighbourhoods, leadership approach in local initiative groups work and Community Forum Programme which developed to an institution at municipalities... all will be presented to the other countries.

           

Big thanks  to the organisers of the meeting – Slaveya and Vladimira from Balkan Assist and to the participants – for their inspiring thoughts and genuine engagement!

Marta Gawinek - Dagargulia

Project facilitator

A real kick-off – LCM in Brussels

What connects a former high official of the Polish embassy in Belgium, a cleaning lady, a Belgian journalist / blogger and a NGO activist? They are all strongly engaged members of the Polish community in Belgium and they all participated at the Local Citizens Meeting in Brussels on 2nd of February, organized by Pour la Solidarité.

Their debate about the most relevant and burning issues that need improvement ended  with the general concern for empowerment of the Polish community in Belgium, support for the newcomers and people in need. They identified  more  themes, e.g. combating stereotypes against Poles in Brussels, supporting specific activities for their community, networking within the community, making a better use of the already existing resources, a better integration in the Belgian community and improvement of the educational standards. Those topics will be further discussed during next local meetings. These citizens of the Polish community in Brussels participate at the I AM EUROPE project to test if and how it can be possible to make changes and transpose their local issues and concerns to the European level.

However, the meeting was not just about identifying problems but also about the first reflections on what  Europe has to do with their local perspectives? How can Europe support the local participation? And can their participation be linked to the policy-making at the European level?

Last but not least they prepared an exciting story to tell you all – the story is full of good practices and methodologies related to participation at the local level. We hope that the chosen representatives – Maciek, Gracjana and Magda will prove to be great storytellers at the Joint Sessions and that you all will enjoy it!

Big thanks to all immensely inspiring citizens and see you soon!

Marta Gawinek - Dagargulia

Project facilitator