Let''s do it in the South Latgale!

Description

The goal of the project “Let’s do it in the South Latgale!” goal is to to promote civic understanding and awareness of the role and importance of the participation of the people of Southern Latgale in the development of a democratic state.
In order to achieve this goal three Partnerships of Southern Latgale – Daugavpils and Ilukste regions’ Partnership “Neighbors”, Kraslava’s region Partnership and Preili region Partnership have gathered resources together and worked out “Southern Latgales’ Democratic Culture and Human rights contributing strategy plan 2020-2026” (SDCH) with strategic aim to empower active citizens, make attractive rural territories and strengthen creative and professional possibilities for each inhabitant of these Partnership territories’.
The projects’ activities are series of community seminars “I can do!”, series of events “Family Garden” and "To open other doors", conversation series with politicians “Debates about Rural life” and festival “Let’s do it in the South Latgale!” that is dedicated to SDCH strategy plan’s implementation and local confidence that rural communities “Can!”.
The project is based on working with local people and NGO`s as well as entrepreneurs and municipalities, and possibility to create environment to encourage local communities` involvement in civic activities, develop understanding of decision-making and the results of  participation. The expected results are increasing the low civic participation in Southern Latgale, reducing distrust of one''s ability to influence democratic processes and the lack of civic education.

Summary of project results

Issues identified by the Project Promoter:

1) Population decline in the rural area of South Latgale and especially in the EU border area. In the last 10 years, the population has decreased by 30-40%, and in this situation the role of each small community is becoming more and more important.
2) The outflow of educated active people from the rural area. The composition of the population is changing rapidly: the proportion of elderly and socially vulnerable people is increasing, the working age population, youth and children are decreasing.
3) Administrative-territorial reform and related factors. With the implementation of the reform, the distance of the communities included in the project to the administrative centre of the municipality will be 35-55 kilometres, which creates the need to strengthen responsible, competent communities and rural populations. 
4) As the number of municipalities in the Partnership areas changes, a balance needs to be found between the interests of municipalities and those of local communities - with the Partnership in the role of mediator. Taken together, these factors create a situation in which community residents will need both new knowledge and new forms of communication and cooperation, both among themselves and with local and national authorities. Communication will become increasingly argumentative and distant, requiring people to be able to articulate their needs and make proposals. In the context of the decline in the proportion of intellectuals in rural areas, these conditions threaten to create a situation in which the inhabitants of communities are unable to express their needs in a comprehensible form, to solve problems and to attract investment to their areas, thus widening the regional divide in Latvia. 

*Democracy festival "I CAN in South Latgale";
*Discussion series with politicians "A word for the countryside";
*"I CAN" series of community seminars;
*Family Garden Festival on civic participation series;
*Civic participation training for young people "Opening other doors";
*Citizens'' activation events for civic participation;
*Project promoter experience exchange in Norway.

* Increased number of people involved in decision-making processes targeting groups of vulnerable local people;
*Increase in the percentage of people involved in civic activities ("Democracy festival", "Family Garden Festival", discussions with politicians "A Word for the Countryside", "I CAN" community seminar series, "Opening Other Doors" youth training) targeting local vulnerable people;
* Increased percentage of people who believe in their personal ability to influence decision-making processes, targeting vulnerable local people (work on the creation of citizens'' councils in municipalities, started in the project, is ongoing).
 

Summary of bilateral results

The partner provided interactive sessions for youth community leaders to learn about democratic processes, and created an insight into the Norwegian democratic culture from their own experience, and was involved in organizing an exchange trip to Norwegian partners. At the moment there are no concrete plans for cooperation.