Description
The project aims at increasing the number of District Councils in Katowice and promoting this form of civic participation in Poland. Steering committees will be formed, petitions will be signed requesting the establishment of Councils, town hall meetings will be held with community members and support and co-ordination will be ensured for the project activities. One of the project outcomes will be an application supporting coordination and monitoring progress of the petition campaign. This will be a generic application and it will be available to other cities, if useful. The project will focus on community leaders in Katowice but it will be open to all residents as Councils can make a difference for the whole community (allocating funds from the city budget). Today, there are 10 Councils in Katowice, one is a work in progress, two are petitioned but 9 districts see no initiatives in this respect.
Summary of project results
"When the application was filed, in Katowice the Auxiliary Unit Councils (AUC) were functioning in less than half of the city districts, and the city inhabitants were not aware about their presence and activities undertaken by persons participating in them. The aim of the project was to promote the Councils in Katowice. Under the project the following activities were organised: - ten training sessions that gathered over a hundred persons, - over twenty open meetings for the inhabitants of the city districts, - a dozen or so initiatives to collect signatures in support for establishing the Auxiliary Unit Councils. As a result, 19 Auxiliary Unit Councils are now present in Katowice. The project benefited mainly city district activists who wanted to formalise their activities under the city structures and to obtain new tools to communicate with the City Hall. The project also benefited inhabitants of the city districts where the Auxiliary Unit Councils were created, for they now have new representatives of their interests."
Summary of bilateral results