الشهر: السنة المالية

On 23rd – 27th May 2015, the final event of project C.H.A.R.M.: Creativity and Healthy style: Advancing the Role of Music project was held in Strasbourg. The Active Citizenship Project Manager, Aldo Xhani, was in charge of holding the activities and Communication officer, Irene Zanetti and her intern, Zuzana Oravcova, supported the communication.

This event peaked in the Final conference, which took place on 26th May 2015 at the Region Alsace (Maison de la Région). Several speakers were present to the conference:

• Ms Elsa Schalck, Regional councilor, Committee on Youth and social Economy, Alsace Region
• السيد أليساندرو بيريلي, Vice President, ALDA – the European Association for Local Democracy
• Ms Mara Georgescu, Educational Advisor, Youth Department of the council of Europe
• Mr Louis Schalck, director of the Centre Social et Culturel de Hautepierre
• Mr Michel G. Jacquet, Project coordinator, Association Horizome
• Mr Aldo Xhani, coordinator of the Citizenship programme of ALDA

The speakers discussed their experiences with music and youth involvement and shared their opinions and draft some new challenges for the future. As a surprise, the youngsters composed a song to celebrate the project C.H.A.R.M. and played it at the end of the Final Conference. This conference officially closed the successful C.H.A.R.M. project whose objectives were to bring together the youth and non-formal education activities, to promote youth active citizenship and to develop youth skills and competencies in order to facilitate the entrance to the labor market, to use the music as a tool to promote non-formal learning and to share the practices and experience among partners.

During these five days in Strasbourg 49 young people from 6 European countries: Italy, France, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and Turkey participated in several activities working together and sharing their opinions, experiences and ideas to create new methodologies of non-formal learning using music.

Please find here the video record of the song.

Please find here the lyrics of the song composed by the participants:

You came by bus, you came by plane
Some of us just took the train
7 countries, 7 ways

The City of Bridges surrounds us
The riverside is calling us
Lovely places and local pubs

C.H.A.R.M. and ALDA invited us
Have you heared about Erasmus+?
A new Generation, a brand new day

Charming people from all around
Let`s get together, sit on the ground
Grab your guitar and sing along
writ a song, make a bond, don`t feel alone
yeah we are one now

A new generation, a brand new day
Nouvelle génération, nouveau jour
Új generatio, teljesen új nap
ново поколение, нов ден
Nova generacija, novi dan
Yeni nesil, yeni bir gün
Nuova generazione, nuovo giorno

Public discussion on Sisak Local Voluntary Policy hold on the 21 May 2015 in the premises of the Home for elderly and dependence persons in Sisak, gathering 35 interested citizens.

***

Sisak deserves voluntary policy on which basics strategy for development of volunteering to be created! – said participants at the public discussion.

Sisak Voluntary policy is created by the Working group composed of 20 organisations and institutions from Sisak area with the purpose to develop local instruments for promoting development and advocacy of volunteering as positive value that contributes to local community development. The process of the policy development is initiated by the Local Democracy Agency Sisak within which the Volunteer’ Centre Sisak is operating since 2011.

“We are institution with a large number of beneficiaries with very particular needs and therefore have permanent need for volunteers, which we often engage. Cooperation with volunteers is valuable. Many of them are engaged through Volunteer’ Centre Sisak services” – said Mrs. Ružica Čakširan, director of the Home for elderly and dependence persons Sisak, at the opening of the public discussion.

“Town of Sisak is successfully cooperating with the LDA Sisak on many different projects and one among them was the EU funded project in which the Volunteer` Centre Sisak is opened. We jointly started the process of creating voluntary policy in 2012. The Town of Sisak is supporting development of volunteerism by funding CSOs, cooperating in celebration of International Volunteers Day and we are annually awarding the best volunteers” – highlighted Mrs. Zrinka Hafizović from Town of Sisak.

 “Public discussion is one of methods for efficient informing and involving citizens in community planning processes, to hear opinion of all interested parties and to contribute to policies and laws creation tailored by the citizens’ needs. Public discussions are recommended in the `Code of practice on consultation of with the interested public in procedures of adopting laws` as well. Therefore we gathered today to jointly propose possible changes in the Voluntary policy but to promote citizens participation processes in the community itself” – explained in introductory note Mrs. Paula Raužan, president of the LDA Sisak.

Mr. Nikola Obad from Civic Initiatives Centre Zagreb presented Regional program for CSOs support E-misija that foster activities of active citizens involvement in community planning processes and decision-making.

Mr. Igor Kovač من عند PRONI Centre for Youth presented the participatory process of designing Sisak Youth Program that highlights volunteering as one of important measures.

Volunteer’ Centre Sisak Coordinator, Mr. Davor Vuga, presented working version of the Voluntary Policy that highlights 5 priority areas in  which additional effort in developing volunteering needs to be make:

1. Social welfare
2. التعليم
3. Youth care
4. Environmental protection
5. Culture and tourism.

The area of Environmental protection includes three sub-areas: Health protection, Ecology protection and energy sufficient and Animal protection.

Full text of the policy available for downloading in Croatian language at web sites of the LDA Sisak وأجندة Town of Sisak.

We invite citizens to send comments, amendments and suggestions on the Sisak Voluntary policy by e-mail to vcs@Lda-sisak.hr by the 7 June 2015 at 23:59 hours. 

The public discussion is part of project “Sisak Volunteer’ Network” implemented by the LDA Sisak in partnership with Town of Sisak and Home for elderly and dependence persons, and funded by the Croatian Ministry of social policy and youth and Town of Sisak.

Public discussion as a good practice for citizens involvement in decision-making process is part of DECIDE project activities, in which LDA Sisak and Town of Petrinja are partners, and funded by the EU Europe for Citizens Program. Town of Petrinja adopted its voluntary policy already and in this public discussion provided support.

The cooperation Lower Normandy/Macedonia launched a call for projects for the stakeholders from Macedonia and Lower Normandy.

***

This cooperation celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, and once again the goal of this call for projects was to generate new fruitful collaborations on the topics at the core of the decentralised cooperation: Human Rights, Culture and Cultural Heritage, Peace and Reconciliation, and Tourism.

40 projects were received and analysed by the selective committee composed by representatives of ALDA, the Region Lower Normandy, the Ministry for Local Self Government of Macedonia and the French Embassy in Macedonia.

13 projects were selected on various subjects and favouring multicultural exchanges on both territories.

This new selection of projects is expected to have rich content, thanks to the heterogeneous approach that the stakeholders have on the topics at the core of the call for projects.

1. Crossed Heritage

2. Reconciliation and perspectives for a common future of Balkans and Europe

3. Europe Here – Europe there (1914-2014)

4. Cherbourg – Veles: the common heritage

5. Promote peace through cooperation between the students of different ethnicities

6. Aromatic and medicinal herbs: a natural heritage to appraise

7. Culture in the role of territorial development and social cohesion

8. Macedonian culture celebrated in Caen – 10 years of Cooperation between Lower Normandy and Macedonia

9. Promotion and preservation of sacred heritage of Macedonia and the Region Lower Normandy

10. Youth in favour of reduction of CO2 emissions

11. Women  and the small handcraft enterprises

12. Summer school of the Human Rights for Macedonian and Normans young people

13. Model to raise the awareness of young people about the topic of human rights in IT

14. From one war to another: juxtaposed reading of historic sources and remembrance

ALDA’s interviews to MEPs and experts on European issues are continuing, in order to better understand opinions and views concerning issues related to European citizenship, local democracy and citizens’ participation.

***

on 25th May, the Secretary General of ALDA, Mrs Antonella Valmorbida, met Mr Flavio Zanonato, MEP, in his office in Padua, Italy.

Mr Flavio Zanonato is an Italian politician. Among the several political positions hold we mention: Mayor of Padua for three terms; Vice-President of ANCI – National Association of Italian Municipalities; Minister of the Economic Development during the rule of Mr Letta; MEP since 2014.

Currently, he is member in the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and in the Delegation for relations with India. Furthermore, he is acting member on the Budget Committee and in the Delegation for relations with Iran.

Several issues have been discussed during the meeting, particularly focusing on the necessity of fostering a stronger European integration, on enlargement policies, on projects developed by our organisation through civil society, as well as the future collaborations on national and European level.

Please, find here the podcast of the interview.

All podcasts of our interviews are available on ALDA SoundCloud profile.

Home for elderly and dependence persons’ beneficiaries overwhelmingly defeated young LDA Sisak volunteers at the traditional sport tournament hold 23 May 2015.

***

In the three sport disciplines: dart, tossing rings and Ludo, tournament gathered 9 LDA Sisak volunteers and 17 beneficiaries of the Home.

The sport tournament hold on occasion of national campaign Croatia is volunteering! that runs for the 5th time in the row already, and this years gathered 195 organisers of volunteering that implemented over 290 voluntary actions في over 60 Croatian towns, in order to contribute to building happier and better communities.

LDA Sisak is the member of Croatian Volunteer Centres Network that organises national campaign.

Sport tournament voluntary action is part of the project “Sisak Volunteer’ Network” funded by the Croatian Ministry of social policy and youth and Town of Sisak.

From 17th to 21st May, the second transnational meeting of the project Break Down Break Out (BDBO) was held in Rome.

***

The meeting was an occasion to assess the first phase of the project and to revise the action plan according to the local needs as well as to promote exchange of knowledge and experience among the trainers. The overall objective of the project is to implement and test the OBAMA (community Orientation, Briefing, Ability, Meeting and Action) capacity building methodology to help long-term unemployed +40 in the partners’ local communities develop entrepreneurial skills.

ALDA, as implementing partner in France, attended the meeting along with representatives of Régie des Ecrivains and Starthop. Throughout the meeting, the partners’ representatives had the opportunity of discussing about successes and difficulties in engaging long-term unemployed people while the group of trainers exchanged experience on the occasion of the in-field visits.

The key of the OBAMA process is the will to act within the community of reference and to provide people with the tools to understand how to develop their potential. The experience of the two year project will be summarised in the final publication and in the virtual platform.

Please, find here more information on BDBO project.

On 29 May 2015 the National University of Public Service (Hungary) in cooperation with the Municipality of Ujbuda, is launching the testing phase and organising a local seminar in the framework of DECIDE project.

***

The measure which is to be implemented is based on the Common Students Council and Youth Regional Council, suggested by Danish and French partners. An effective model of municipality-university of public services cooperation which aims to strenthen participatory democracy and citizen participation in local decision-making will be presented at the local event on 29 May 2015.

The students of public administration (MA) at the National University of Public Services (Budapest, Hungary) fulfil their practice work in the framework of communication management of public service by planning a complex communication campaign of a municipality project (60+ programme for seniors of the Local Government of Újbuda). The objective is to offer the opportunity of organization communication relations with the citizens, and of engaging the residents on local policy issues. They face the challenges in reaching effective information, establishing dialogues, and of involvement of citizens in local decision making.