Dokumentumok
Cím:
Community Development Partnership Building in Central and Eastern Europe
A kiadás helye:
Budapest
A kiadás éve:
2000
Kiadó:
Közösségfejlesztők Egyesülete
Nyelv:
angol
Állomány:
Közösségfejlesztési partnerségépítés Közép-Kelet Európában
Megjegyzés:
Raktári jelzet:
E


Community Development Partnership Building in Central and Eastern Europe

I. Description of need for the program

During the past 4-5 years the representatives of the HACD met representatives from other Central-Eastern European community development organisations, and they have obtained the following experiences:

We find that the most ideal contribution to meeting these needs is a collective sort of work that comprises common action and, as a result, new activities in each country.

Led by these considerations, the leaders of the HACD started to look for opportunities for co-operation and they decided to involve some organizations in its “Trainer Training” Program. The HACD contacted the organizations through e-mail and telephone, and it asked for their opinion about participating in such a project. Every partner has emphasized the importance of strengthening its training activities, has expressed its willingness in terms of co-operation, further partnership and networking, and has submitted its proposals. The organizations have been working on the idea of a Partnership in Community Development for 4 months. Each partner has been develop a local needs assessment and established the main problem which may be addressed by a partnership.

The present project was born as a result of this.

In our opinion, the joint “Trainer Training” Course and the pilot training courses and action organized parallel to it serve well the establishment of partnership, the development of the individual organizations and strengthening community development in the region as well.

The reason for this is that the “Trainer Training” Course reveals and evaluates practical and theoretical experiences obtained in the region, and thus:
Naturally, we do not know every community development organization in the region, but we find that we need to start partnership building with organizations that we already know and that are already in contact with each other. We are confident that more organizations that we do not know will join us from the region in the future (we will do our best to attract them as well).

What is the project designed to achieve?

We would like to achieve a more effective contribution of community development to the development of our societies and of our region, and to the widespread adaptation of participatory democracy, self-help and collective organization.

Specific organization’s development partner organizations are aiming to achieve - see Enclosure 1.

Participating Organizations
Hungary
Hungarian Association for Community Development (main applicant)
In partnership with the Civil College Foundation, and Intercommunity Foundation

Slovakia VOKA
Romania Human Reform Foundation In partnership with the Regional Association for Community Development and Regional Community Development Agency, Romanian Association for Community Development
Poland Local Activity Support Center - CAL Association

The contribution of the organizations taking part
The Hungarian Association for Community Development takes the responsibility of holding together the community development organizations of the region, organizing the events of the project, coordinating the work, and making its international contacts available for the participants of the project.
The Civil College Foundation, Hungary takes the responsibility of sharing its knowledge, curricula and experiences obtained during higher-educational and other training courses with the community development organizations of the region. It will have the most important documents translated into English.
The Intercommunity Foundation, Hungary makes the documents at its disposal available for the participants of the project, it will share its experiences obtained in the areas of data processing and virtual publications with the partner organizations, and, through its professional experiences, it will promote further co-operation and network-building among the organizations taking part.

The Romanian, Polish and Slovakian organizations have taken the responsibility of participating in the project. They will take part in the transnational meetings as well as in the regional “Trainer Training” Course, they will perform the local activities planned for the project, and they will perform their duties related to reporting and accounting.

The project-closing seminar will be organized by the Human Reform Foundation.

II. Project Activities Planned

The activities planned in the framework of the project are based on sharing existing experiences and on immediately applying newly obtained knowledge.

The experiences to be shared are mainly organised around teaching community development.

The partner organizations all have a different past and professional background, and they are all striving to find their place in their society. The HACD has had 20 years of past, and 10 years of past in higher-education, during which it has developed its subjects considerably, and it has managed to have community development become a registered profession on both the secondary and higher-educational levels, and to launch post-gradual training as well. It is very important to note that although all the subjects developed by the HACD contain overviews of foreign practice, they are primarily based on the Hungarian practice. This factual data that we experienced, analyzed, evaluated and scientifically systematized serves as the basis of the subjects we have developed.

It is certain that all of the different organizations have particular training experiences that the other organizations can make use of as well. These areas will be identified in the framework of the 1st Transnational Workshop, and the different organizations will all contribute their own areas to the Trainer Training Course.
As far as we can see from the local projects, every organization has its particular areas of activities, and getting to these activities and including them in a curriculum will effectively supplement the knowledge the organizations have had up to now. It is important that this knowledge has been obtained by these organizations among the same conditions of social psychology. Examples for special knowledge include:
HACD – local development, local media, community economic development
Civil College – training activists of civil organizations as well as community development
Intercommunity Foundation – Community Databank
HUREF – small regional development
RACD – partnership building with other professionals (teachers, journalists), community art,
CAL – local civic activity
VOKA – community economic development

Hence, according to our ideas, the project will comprise activities carried out on the common, regional, local and national levels:
- During regional work the organisations will share their existing training experiences and will develop the curriculum of teaching community development by subjects,
- During local activities the organisations will adopt what they have learnt during the trainer training programme to their own social environment, they will share it with their own colleagues dealing with training and with other professionals interested in training, who can apply this knowledge in their work.

Detailed Project Plan

The Community Development Partnership Building in Central and Eastern Europe” Project has the following main parts:
· Transnational Workshop
· Preparatory Work
· Regional Community Development “Trainer Training” Course
· Local Activities in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania
· Transnational Seminar - Dissemination and networking

Duration of project: 27 months
Project start date: 1 May 2001
Project end date: 31 July 2003
Location of project: Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania

1. Transnational Workshop
The workshop shall be attended by representatives from each organization participating in the project. The participants will introduce their organization as well as the situation of community development in their country, paying special attention to the training situation in their country. They will present their opportunities, their expectations regarding the project, and their potential contribution to carrying out the project. They shall develop and finalize the project together.

The venue for the seminar is the Civil College Training Center, Kunbábony, Hungary
Date: 28 May 2001 – 1 June 2001
Participants:
7 organizations from 4 countries with 2-3 representatives each - 18 people altogether
Working language: English, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovakian

2. Preparatory Work
August-October, 2001
According to the agreement made at the meeting, each participating country will prepare itself for carrying out the CEE program. This phase consists of the following:
During the preparations the organizations will keep in touch, will help each other, and they will provide the HACD, the project head with information concerning the following parts of the project.

3. Regional Community Development “Trainer Training” Course
Participants: the 7 organizations of the 4 countries will be represented by 2-4 people each (a maximum of 24 people altogether)
Teachers:
The program comprises two residential phases and a phase between them that build on homework.

The venue of the residential course: Civil College Training Center, Kunbábony, Hungary

Duration: 15 days: 10 days in November 2001, 5 days in February 2002.

Between the two residential phases the participants will develop their own curricula, and they will communicate with the help of the Internet.

Training materials will be translated into English and mother tongues – Hungarian, Polish, Slovakian, and Romanian.

3.1. 10 days in November 2001 – The first residential phase of training
Introductory lectures
The participants will be given subject introductory lectures that are based on the responsibilities taken during the preparatory phase, and on the contributions of the tutors of the Civil College.
The subject introductory lectures will present areas of cognition (subjects) within community development. They will describe the literature related to each subject; they will reason the importance of the given subject as well as its position in the training system.
The tutors of the Civil College will present their own experiences regarding training: the proportions of theory and practice, case studies and fieldwork, etc.
The teachers doing the introduction will provide the participants with professional materials in English (articles, extracts from books, bibliographies, etc.).

The subjects proposed by the HACD-Civil College include:
Everyone uses their own language while working in the program, which means that we will have to provide Hungarian-Romanian and Hungarian-Slovakian interpreters. The training materials will be provided in English.

3.2. December 2001, January 2002
The participants will work at home.
3.3. 5 days in February 2002
The final phase of the Regional “Trainer Training” Course, during which: In accordance with the responsibilities taken during the preparatory phase, the organizations will present case studies taken from their own practice. The case studies will be presented in both written (English) and spoken form. Our objective is to have the case studies deal with the different levels (neighborhood, local, municipal, small regional and regional) and areas (poverty, social inclusion, environmental issues, taking part in development schemes, local media, neighborhood economy, etc.) of community development, and we would like to have them form the basis for a regional compilation of examples by the end of the project.
Similarly to the previous section, everyone will use their own mother tongue while working, and interpreters will be provided.

4. Local Activities in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania
“Trainer Training” Courses on the Grassroots Level
Following this, the participating organizations will launch their own “Trainer Training” course or other similar activities.
The activities will be held between March – December 2002, January 2003

Hungary
The HACD-Civil College will launch the first professional (vocational) community development training course.

Participants: professionals with a university or college degree who are active in one of the areas of community development, 20 people altogether
The training course contains of 330 hours (theory 150 hours, homework 100 hours, practice 80 hours).
Date: 1 March 2002 – 30 November 2002
Way of scheduling:
6 residential weekend courses, 25 hours/event.
Practice will be organized along theoretical training, individually and in-groups, under the supervision of teachers.
Exam: December 2002

Poland
Romania
Slovakia
Disseminating and Networking
A, Transnational Seminar
The lecturers: Besides the 8 lecturers, 22 people will take part in representing those organisations of the participating countries which have not been involved yet.
The seminar will be organized at a Romanian venue with 30 participants.



Date: March of 2003
Duration: 3 days
The seminar will be organized in conjunction with the final, closing transnational workshop.
The working language of the seminar is English (interpreters will be provided for the Romanian hosting participants).

B, Transnational Workshop
Participants taking part in the “Community Development Partnership Building in Central and Eastern Europe” project will summarize their common experiences, will evaluate the work that has been done, and will develop ways to carry on with the co-operation and to build a network, that is, they will make follow-ups possible.

Setting Up a Regional Information Base
The Intercommunity Foundation, Hungary will collect and share study materials on a regular basis during the project. At the end of the project, all the accumulated materials will be systematised, and the information base of regional training courses and that of co-operation. This work will consist of the following: In order to run the information base, it will need to be completed with lacking elements, building on the existing technical equipment.

Useful information and ideas will be shared with others in local publications and events too (conferences, seminars, general assemblies, board meetings, meetings with partners co-operating with us in other projects, etc.).

Reporting
HACD will evaluate the quality of the co-operation and the reports will be summarised.

The writing of the Final Report work will be performed by the HACD on the basis of the reports made by the organisations and the project closing seminar.

Funding
We hope that the Mott Foundation will be the main sponsor of the project.
The work done during the project will be in organic relation with the philosophy and strategic ideas of the organisations, but it will enrich their working plans wit new activities. As a result of the collective regional activities, every organisation will perform innovations in its own operation and will take on extra work. Naturally, this will have an effect on the staffs of organisations, and co-ordination will therefore need to be strengthened. Hence, having considered all these, the organisations that have already been granted by the Mott Foundation have a reason to get a new grant.
We have received a supplementary funding of GBP 6.145,70 from Charity Know How (U.K.) and all the organisations are preparing for obtaining further funding and making use of their own resources.

March 2001, Budapest

Tamás A. Varga,
President
HACD,


Dokumentumok