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Description
We are a watchdog organization that exerts influence on local authorities. This year we received 54 reports of irregularities and requests for help from local residents. The cases concern suspected corruption, conflicts of interest, irregularities in the functioning of government offices, and the exertion of pressure by the authorities. Journalists are rarely involved in monitoring activities: investigative journalism accounts for 0.04% of publications in the local press. Young people are not engaged in local affairs and do not use the tools of co-decision. During the last elections to the district councils, out of 608 candidates, only 38 were under the age of 26 (6%). The participation of young people in voting for the civic budget in Lublin has been declining for several years. The aim of the project is to engage the residents of four county towns in the Lublin Province (with a particular focus on youth) in watchdog activities at the local government level. We will conduct monitoring of the mayors'' pre-election promises and research the activity of councilors. The reports prepared as part of the project will serve as a tool for the citizens before local elections planned for 2023. We will develop the ‘Open Lublin’ newspaper by engaging citizen journalists in its co-creation. Young people and university students from Lublin, Zamość, Chełm and Biała Podlaska will benefit from planned activities, especially those showing interest in local affairs, civil society, openness of public life and human rights. Community activists and people interested in local affairs will receive support and gain an opportunity to broaden their knowledge about the right to information, civic control and journalism. The project will result in an increase in independent and objective accountability of mayors to citizens regarding the fulfillment of their electoral promises, an increased activity and accessibility of councilors, and a greater sense of youth''s influence on local affairs.
Summary of project results
The project was a response to problems related to the lack of knowledge and low level of influence of residents on local and self-government matters and insufficient citizen control at the local government level in the Lublin Voivodeship - difficulties with accountability of the work of city mayors and councilors. Another problem was the deficit of young people''s participation in decision-making at the local government level (civic budget, district councils). The impetus to deal with these issues was the prospect of the upcoming local government elections.
We conducted research on the activity of councilors and monitoring the implementation of pre-election promises in the 4 largest cities of the Lublin Voivodeship. At the end of the project, we presented statuettes to the most active councilors in individual cities. We have significantly developed the website jawnylublin.pl, where in two years we have published over 800 texts on local issues, including texts published by 14 citizen journalists. We included young people in the activities, both in the work on the project, as well as volunteers and participants (youth city councils). We organized workshops on tools to influence local affairs, addressed to young residents of Chełm, Zamość, Puławy and Janów Lubelski.
The implementation of the planned activities led to an increase in the transparency and accessibility of the work of local government officials (councillors and city presidents). We have noticed that they even refer to the results of our research in order to emphasize their activity and effectiveness (e.g. the presidents of Zamość and Puławy citing the results of our monitoring of the implementation of pre-election promises). The activity of the jawnylublin.pl portal has developed significantly. Over the past two years, the number of published articles and the number of views have increased several times. Thanks to establishing contact and conducting workshops, the awareness of city youth council members increased regarding their competences and tools for influencing local affairs.