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Description
Ever since the Petrinja earthquake of 29.12.2020., the Association has been helping the rural population of the affected Petrinja and Glina areas (including ethnic Croatians and minority populations such as ethnic Serbs, Muslims, and Romani) by securing materials and resources necessary for survival in such a devastated environment. The Association will also promote and provide help in creating cooperatives and spreading the knowledge needed for good governance. The results of these efforts will be: the development of sustainable economy on one’s own land, reduction of the number of people forced to emigrate from earthquake-affected areas, and increased cooperation and revitalization of local economies.
We will film a short documentary that will, in combination with organized roundtable sessions, bring the often systematically neglected topics of social justice, food sovereignty, and freedom from want, into focus. These steps will ensure that the project achieves its goals of raising the awareness of importance of human rights, social justice, and reduction of poverty-inducing circumstances.
To achieve the ultimate goal of creating a network that advocates topics of rural development and food sovereignty towards official policy-makers, the Association will ensure that the project is disseminated to all interested parties.
The importance of discussing these subjects has sadly been confirmed by the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the resulting socio-economic events.
Summary of project results
Food sovereignty, social justice and human security are marginalized in the Republic of Croatia, this tipics are not present in public space and the practices are inconsistent with the declared policies. Human security includes economic, environmental, food security, health, personal, community and political security - which are the basis for "freedom from scarcity" and "freedom from fear". According to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "the ideal of free human beings, who enjoy civil and political freedom and who are free from fear and scarcity, can only be achieved if conditions are created in which everyone can enjoy their economic , social and cultural rights, as well as their civil and political rights". The focus of the Project is social justice, economic, environmental and food security as a condition for freedom from scarcity and fear; raising public awareness of the right to freedom from poverty and fear; advocating greater influence of the population of rural areas in the creation of public policies.
The data show that the official policy does not find quality solutions. The poverty risk rate in Croatia in 2019 was 18.3%; persons at risk of poverty 23.2%; persons in severe material deprivation 7.3%. The result of the Corruption Perception Index in 2019 is that Croatia achieved 47 points and 63rd place out of 180 countries included in the survey. In the period from 2015 to 2019, the Republic of Croatia experienced the second largest decline in population through migration in the European Union. Slavonia and the area around city Sisak faced the worst situation. The excess of emigration leads to an additional decrease in GDP per inhabitant and actually closes the circle of poverty and deterioration, and regional inequalities increase. The population is impoverished and is not included in the created solutions for the revitalization of the area, and as the population is multi-ethnic, the difficult conditions in which they live contribute to the increase of mutual intolerance.
A survey was conducted among the local population, one of the planned eight lectures by volunteer lecturers and one of the planned four expert lectures was held, two of the three organizational development sessions were held, and project visibility was ensured through social networks and the Association''s website.
The agreed-upon results were not achieved; only a limited number of specific activities were carried out, which did not significantly contribute to the overarching goals and objectives of the project.