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Description
NGO “Partnership Daugavkrasts” by implementing this project has envisioned a development of entirely new curricula– to energize the civic society and its representation in large and quite diverse Ķekava district of Latvia. Among results of the project there will be developed the policy and instrumental framework for the Partnership to become a NGO contact point by fostering the collaboration between NGO’s, encouraging and implementing new ideas and building the representation in local government and umbrella institutions. Potentially the development of the Ķekava NGO contact point would serve as a pilot platform for NGO contact point in Riga agglomeration area.
Project activities allow to audit the previous curricula of the Partnership, develop the documentation to support a new function – guidelines for the collaboration of non-governmental sector with local government, calculations of budget for NGO contact point and potential sources of such financing, the value framework and practical guidelines of inclusion of the member organisations of Partnership, voluntary work, asignment of the responsibilities and the annually recurring events calendar. To research and prepare the content of these documents, the Partnership will form a workgroup amongst its members, focus groups and seminar will be held to discuss and evaluate the conclusions of the audit, and to approve the best content of documents. In order to provide the needed insight and understanding of operation of NGO contact centre, an experience exchange trip will be organised to one of the NGO centres in Latvia. The web platform as prototype One-Stop NGO Agent will be developed to link the webpage of Partnership with project’s Facebook page and NGO contact groups.
It is expected, that this project will be an important contribution to the qualitative transformation process of NGO “Partnership Daugavkrasts” and entirely novel functional capacity of the organisation with future sustainability ensured.
Summary of project results
In order to broaden the scope of the activities of the organisation, i.e. from a LEADER funding administrator to become a contact point for the non-governmental sector in Kekava Municipality promoting cooperation between communities, NGOs and active citizens, attracting new projects, implementing citizens'' ideas, as well as representation in the municipality and other institutions, the organisation had the following development needs:
- to develop a new function in the activities of the organisation - activation of civil society cooperation and representation in Kekava municipality.
- to develop the necessary operational documents and implement the first activities for the establishment of a contact point for the non-governmental sector in the entire Kekava municipality,
- to develop a virtual cooperation platform for local NGOs,
- to exchange of good practices with similar NGO contact centres elsewhere in Latvia.
The following activities were carried out during the project:
- an audit of the organisation''s previos activities,
- development of documents for the implementation of the new function - a study on the processes of community building in Kekava municipality and guidelines for cooperation of the non-governmental sector, including cooperation with the municipality,
- a web platform for strengthening cooperation between NGOs in Kekava municipality, which includes news, information about organisations, cooperation offers, a calendar of events and a repository of resources,
- an experience exchange trip to other NGO focal points in Latvia, which allowed the persons involved to gain the necessary vision and knowledge on the functioning of such an NGO contact point.
- The researches/documents produced have both strengthened the capacity of the organisation and provided a data-driven basis for the organisation''s future work s as NGO contact point in the region. Also, these documents have been the basis for discussions with the municipality in the elaboration of the new development programme of the municipality, defining activities to activate local communities, to support NGOs and ensure effective cooperation between civic society and municipality.
- Civil society of Kekava municipality has been actively involved in the process of establishment and development of the NGO contact point and project has contributed to increasing its activity. In the result of project activities, the municipality of Kekava perceives project applicant and non-governmental sector as a whole as serious cooperation partner.
- Developed a platform/website for NGOs in Kekava municipality, as well as other communication channels, have helped to reach local NGOs and to promote their cooperation. There is an agreement with the municipality of Kekava that the created platform will also be used as a NGO section of the municipality website, and the municipality will not create a parallel source of information for the same purpose.