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Cím:
"Community Development Network Building in Central-Eastern Europe" Project
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Nyelv:
angol
Tárgyszavak:
network, Central and Eastern Europe, community development
Állomány:
Community Development Network Building in Central and Eastern Europe, Közösségfejlesztési hálózatépítés Kelet-Közép Európában
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E

Community Development Network Building in Central-Eastern Europe
Follow-up Project Proposal for 2003-2005

The following proposal is a result of the collective work of organizations participating in the Community Development Partnership Building in Central and Eastern Europe project 2001-2003.

I. General Information
Summary of program results to date
In the above project participating organizations were:
Hungary
· Hungarian Association for Community Development (main applicant)
In partnership with the Slovakia
· VOKA
Romania
· Human Reform Foundation/SZEKE Regional Association for Community Development and
· Romanian Association for Community Development
Poland
· Local Activity Support Center - CAL Association
Participating organizations commenced the implementation of the project in August 1, 2001, and the work is being completed as planned, by the end of June 2003. The Hungarian, Romanian, Slovakian and Polish organizations have proved to be fine cooperating partners.

In May 2001 a preparatory meeting was organized.
Following this a regional community development “Trainer Training’ course was organized in Hungary in two phases – 15 days altogether – in November 2001 and in March 2002. 7 organizations of the 4 countries were represented by 2 to 4 people each (20 people altogether). Between the two residential phases, the participants developed their own curricula, and they communicated with the help of the Internet.

The participants gave a positive feedback during the evaluation. They said that new strategic opportunities had opened up for them. They found that we are very diverse in terms of culture, and we know very little of one another. The participants find it important to continue cooperation and learn in practice about the operation and actions of each organization.

In the second stage of the project participating organizations have started to run their own local training courses, following the lessons they learned at the “Training the Trainers” Course.
Each of the organizations has carried over the knowledge obtained at the Training the Trainers Course to its local training activities, whether it was training community activists or community workers.
Most important results: At the project-closing seminar in March 2003 Szováta, Romania evaluation /planning workgroups were organized.
The most important results/effects of the co-operation were defined by the participants as it follows:
Information on long-term plans for the network
At the abovementioned project-closing seminar, participants answered the following questions in groups:
Why do we want to work together?
Who? With whom to work? Cooperation, responsibility
The answers searched for types of cooperation, and for responsibilities that the group members are willing to take for promoting and implementing partnership projects.

What do we want? What kind of project?
It appears that we can proceed in two directions:
Geographic scope of the program/network
We have been considering a Central-Eastern European co-operation from the very beginning, always having in mind that the seven organizations beginning to co-operate within the project were only taking the initial steps towards wider co-operation. Meanwhile, several of us have joined the CEE Citizens Network, through which we were given the opportunity to learn about a number of other organizations. Naturally, our primary interest concerned those organizations in which community development plays a major role.
We have invited several new organizations interested in community development to the project-closing seminar (enclosed please find the list of participants). We have paid attention to connecting the work done within the region with the activities of the EU, and we have invited the Secretary General of IAVE, an international community development organization, and one of the board members of the EU CD network (CEBSD).
We have made it clear to the participants that every organization that pays special attention to community development in its work, will encounter open doors to further co-operation. This intention has been confirmed at the CEE Citizens Network’s conference organized in Bosnia and Herzegovina in April. A staff member of the Mott Foundation has recommended some other organizations. Hence, the circle of project participants was built up step by step, enforcing the community development principle of building from below.
At present, the future network comprises the following organizations:
CAL Poland, C.E.G.A Bulgaria, Centre for Community Organizing Czech Republic, Citizen Foundation Russia, “Donbass” Ukraine, HACD Hungary, Institute of Public Administration and Regional Development Ukraine, RACD Romania, SZEKE for Székelyland Romania, VOKA Slovakia

Aim of the network
Please clarify what you want to achieve together as a network - what is the aim of the exchange of information and at what level you are putting the emphasis (community, practitioners, organizations, national, regional etc.). What are the goals/aims/expected changes from the work of the network?
The essence of further co-operation has been adequately outlined at the project final seminar in Szováta.
The following arguments encouraged network co-operation:
The short term objectives of the network – which have already been detailed under Point 3 above – can be summarized as follows:

We are to build a regular exchange of information and basis for co-operation among the community development organizations of the CEE region, in order to:
The long-term objective of the network is to place increased emphasis on the importance of having a European forum at which the ideas, principles and methods of community development could be discussed and analyzed.

We have already taken the first steps towards this objective, namely when we ventured to connect the community development organizations of the CEE region with European and worldwide organizations. This already happened on a small scale at the seminar in Szováta – as a result of this event a European community development conference will be organized in March 2004 in Budapest, which is to focus on community development activities taking place in the CEE region, and which will be attended by the members constituting our network.

Expected results of networking:
Membership
What is the criteria for becoming a member (in terms of type of approach used, geographic scope, budget, etc.)
The member organizations mostly cover an entire country or significant region. Whilst the members are varied in size and status, they all have a commitment to community development principles and methods and sustain this commitment within the CEE context as well as within the national one.
During our networking activities no distinction is made between EU-members, those who are going to become EU members in the near future, and members working in other Eastern-European countries. Furthermore, we are doing our best to share know-how elaborated by older members with interested newly joining members. The only criteria of participation are: commitment to community development and willingness to co-operate.

Leadership
Who is in the leadership of this network? Does it go beyond HACD? What are the rules for fundraising, (would other organizations in the network apply as well?)
We do not intend to give anyone a leadership role within the network. The HACD, which has initiated co-operation, has a coordinating role within the project – however, this role is not fulfilled by the HACD alone, since the co-ordination of the complex international events to be organized in the different countries will always be performed by the given hosting organization at the given venue.
Fundraising has also entailed equal tasks for everyone. Every organization must develop independently the financial background and organization for the event it is to host.

Scope of work
You have many planned activities. What are your priorities should you not raise all the needed funds from other sources? What are the core activities you would like to see happen?
The project strings the implementation of all arising needs on a series of international meetings. Each meeting will combine the following elements: The good practices which will have emerged at the regular community development events will be put on the home pages of network members, which will also provide links to each other’s web pages.
International events will be supplemented by some bilateral and multilateral elements of co-operation, such as the measurement of social capital in a number of local communities.
Finally, the project will create new activities that focus on the aspects of network building within each country.

Such a complex and far-reaching project can only be implemented through regular co-ordination, and thus the financial want of our present project proposal is concerned with this aspect most – while network members themselves will raise the majority of the material costs of projects.

II. Program plan for the next two years
The project functions on three levels:
· the level of all participants – this entails international events that expect the participation of everyone,
· bilateral international work,
· work to be done in everyone’s own country.

Ways of Co-operation
1. Network Building – Organizational Co-operation
1.1 Coordination Committee
Each participating organization points out a person to participate in the coordination group.
Bulgaria: Teodora Velichkova, C.E.G.A. Foundation
Czech Republic: Jiri Danes, Centre for Community Organizing
Hungary: Ilona Vercseg, HACD
Romania: Mara Danaila, RACD; Poland: Malgorzata Paradowska, CAL
Russia: Igor Kokarev, Citizen Foundation
Slovakia: Ingrid Bernathova, VOKA
Ukraine: Vyacheslav Koval, RDA “Donbass”;
Their task is to synchronize international work and the local project work done by the participating organization. The coordination committee meets at least three times during the two years of the project. The first occasion will be a project planning meeting, while we can link the second ant third occasion with regular community development activities – see next point. The second meeting will aim at performing an interim evaluation and, if necessary, at making the necessary corrections. The third meeting will aim at performing the final evaluation and at planning future steps. Besides these three sessions, the coordination committee will maintain regular e-group communication as well.
Activity:
To set up a co-ordination committee – Autumn 2003 (until the end of November)
The objective of the meeting is to reach a consensus in terms of the functioning of the network, and to discuss the implementation of tasks undertaken within the framework of the project (seminars, study visits, website development, social capital project, country-activities, fundraising, etc.)

1.2 Regular Community Development Events
These events (seminars/workshops and local project visits) will be organized on a rotational basis, three times a year, that is, six times altogether. Events will be linked with coordinative team-meetings and study visits, with up to 20 participants each (except the conference, of course, which will be attended by 200 people). Following the events, we will have to pay attention to spreading good theory and practice – written materials should be put on home pages, publications should come out, materials should be published, etc.
(Expenses: Budget 2.b)
November 2003
Host organization: HACD
Venue: Hungary, Kunbábony
Theme: International seminar on measuring community development through the measurement of social capital
Project visit offered on the following subject: community economic development in the small region of the Upper-Kiskunság

March 25-28 2004
EU Conference in Budapest
It can be linked with a CEBSD-CEE CD Network meeting

Summer 2004
Host organization: Regional Development Agency “Donbass”
Venue: Ukraine
Theme: Community development in industrial European regions being in transition processes
Project visit offered on the same subject

Autumn 2004
Host organization: RACD
Venue: Romania
Theme: Community organizations – building understanding of what is an effective community organization?
Project visit offered on the following subject: Community development through school – the school as a local facilitator

Spring 2005
Host organization: C.E.G.A. Foundation.
Venue: Sofia, Bulgaria
Theme: CD and Marginalized Communities – Case Studies and Policy Recommendations
Project visit offered on the following subject: Case Studies on Community Development

Summer 2005
Host organization: Citizen Foundation, Russia
Venue: Moscow
Theme: Local economy based on social capital of neighborhood groups and the conditions of grassroots initiatives
Project visit offered on the same subject

Autumn 2005 – project-closing seminar
Host organization: HACD
Venue: Hungary, Kunbábony
Theme: Mapping the Central-Eastern-European context of community development, revealing and comparing similarities and differences
Project visit offered on the following subject: decision will be made later



1.3 Database
It is indispensable to establish a database containing information about the organizations of the network. Besides the basic information about the organization, it is worth mapping the activities and contacts of the given organization as well. Links between their homepages should also be arranged.
The HACD will develop further the CEE pages of its website, which has been set up as a result of the previous project. Each organization is continuing to develop its own website and the links among our homepages.

2. Bilateral Project Work - Collective Work and Project Development – Co-operation in Terms of Contents
2.1 Development of methods
Starting to measure CD through measuring social capital in the practical fields of network members.
See point 1.2, the first international event

2.2 Developing bi- or multilateral activity, projects, e.g. community school, community economic development, community media, joint training courses in the area of community media.
Co-operation on bi- or multilateral basis will be developed at our meetings, additional fundraising will be performed by the interested organizations.

3. Organizing “Political” Community Development Events
Major event: European CD Conference in 2004 Budapest
This conference will bring together community activists, community development practitioners, researchers, trainers and policy advisers from across the continent of Europe (up to 200 people) to share experiences on a wide range of policy and practice issues. The conference takes place at a time of EU enlargement with the accession of several central European countries.
The aim is to focus on CEE CD: not only what is happening but to strengthen what is happening through building networks, providing support for regional workshops, and supporting each other’s work. We would want to call the various government bodies’ attention to CD and also that of the EU as it gets larger.

The key outcomes of the conference will be to:
III. Country Activities
Establishing Nationwide Community Development Networks

It is necessary to establish local networks in order to increase the effectiveness of the profession in each country. This has happened in several countries, where we usually talk about spontaneous co-operations (an exception is Romania, where there is already a network-like co-operation with other networks), but where there are organizations with similar objectives and methods; it is worth establishing a loose formalization. A good method of network building is the organization of seminars and workshops in each country.

Our international events will serve as information exchange forums too. It is obvious that during these meetings we will inspire each other’s network building activities too.

1 August, 2003

Ilona Vercseg
President
HACD

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