Let's talk Europe!

So, as I explained previously, we had lots of questions that we wanted an answer to – answers that are crucial to the whole I AM EUROPE project. And, of course, we couldn’t tackle all these questions by ourselves. We needed many helping hands and much expertise.  We were very lucky to find both in the 12 partner organizations that were more than willing to join us in this challenging quest.

Some of our partners are contributing their expertise on European affairs or citizens’ participation. They ‘open doors’ for us. They are renowned institutions – some of them think-tanks, others leading organizations in promoting citizens’ participation in the process of unifying Europe – with lots of influential power.

However, most of the project partners are grassroots and/or civil society organizations, from all over Europe. Through them I AM EUROPE will be able to work directly with about 250 citizens from eight EU countries, all of whom are playing an active role in their communities. 

We believe that active citizens can be the motor of change within the European Union. If the EU becomes more appealing to its citizens and generates greater participation, it will be mainly thanks to committed and active citizens like our participants. Needless to say, they are the backbone of the project.

I AM EUROPE will try to create a framework for these citizens so that they can learn from each other, exchange ideas, assess new opportunities and seek ways to maximize their impact on European policy and in the public domain. In the coming weeks, all the participating citizens will create profiles and become visible on this website. Gradually the ‘gray grid’ will come to life as the project becomes ‘peopled’, and the ideas, expertise and imagination of lots of enthusiastic citizens begin to build up its momentum.

Keep in touch!

Tim Verbist
(EF)

I am Europe

For almost 10 years, the Evens Foundation has been initiating and supporting projects that stimulate active citizenship and advocate citizens’ political participation at local level. Our overall aim was to encourage citizens to transform ‘from client to agent’. To achieve this we set up or supported projects based on the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) or Can Do methodologies, both of which focus on making better use of local capital and talent – in brief, community development based on all the resources in a community.

We had projects in Antwerp (Belgium), Sevran (France) and Warsaw (Poland), all sharing the same principles and goals, but working apart from each other. So we started to wonder how we could link these initiatives. This prompted many other questions. Could we enable these projects to exchange and learn from one another? Could participation methods be applied at a higher policy level – for example, at the European level? What participation tools was the EU providing? Were they working well? Could they be improved? Could we come up with good ideas to make the EU more democratic?

All these questions (and more) lie at the basis of the I AM EUROPE project. To answer them requires a major investigative process. We are thus inviting you to keep reading the blog and to join the discussions. Or maybe you’d just like to follow the progress of this quest.

We welcome any suggestions that will help to enable and strengthen the participation of citizens in the policies and workings of the EU, and to make it more democratic.

Let us know what you think!

Tim Verbist
Evens Foundation