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

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