The speakers at the conference, which was opened by the mayor of the city of Serres, presented many examples of good practice of activating civil society for joint development and problem solving at the local and regional level. At the time of the event, there were long queues in front of ATMs and lively discussions about the possible scenarios of the outcome of the Greek crisis. Perhaps because of this, the conference was a little less visited than we expected, because in the concern for savings and an uncertain future, people are not ready to think about the levers for greater involvement of civil society in Europe.
The event entitled ‘Development of regions and cities through civic participation within the framework of the European Union’ is the second project event, the first was held in Dresden at the beginning of May this year with the aim of contributing to the activation of young people through volunteering.
Serres is a city in the Greek region of Macedonia with 100,000 inhabitants, east of Thessaloniki. The event was prepared by the Municipality of Serres and the Unesko Club, which are both partners on the Docpie project. The large number of speakers at the conference presented many topics, from the principles of operation of the European Union, programs for the development of regions, the Europe for Citizens program, which co-finances the DOCPIE project, to interesting experiences in successful projects, such as a global project or ‘Love You Block’ movement and “The European Youth Capital Thessaloniki 2014‘.
Fifteen partners, led by the LAZ association, reviewed the activities so far at the meeting and found that the project is going according to plan. Over the summer, the activities will be aimed at collecting the opinions of citizens in all partner countries and also in others via an online questionnaire. It is available in Slovenian at the link www.1ka.si/a/68449. We will inform the European Commission of the results, findings and your initiatives.
The next event as part of the DOCPIE project will be organized by the LAZ association in Ljubljana and Šmartne pri Litija on September 24.
More about the project is here and on Facebook.
