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Description
More than 17,500 people from the villages of Haskovo Municipality have limited access to health and social services and cultural events because they cannot afford to cover the travelling costs to the cities to receive such services. The only opportunity for these people to take part in local decision-making is by voting in the elections. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic the local villagers ended up being dependent on the decisions of local authorities without the opportunity to mobilise themselves and take steps to meet their own needs. Most of them do not have the knowledge and skills to look for national or European financing and there is no available funding at local level. The project aims at overcoming this inequality by active involvement of citizens in solving issues and by implementing initiatives at local level. We envisage to draft a Programme for Participatory Budgeting as a universal tool that can quickly and adequately meet the specific needs of the villagers. We plan to provide training to at least 45 members of the target group (the citizens of Haskovo Municipality and in particular the villages of Voivodovo, Stamboliyski and Malevo) to help them acquire knowledge and skills about advocacy lobbying, recruiting volunteers, planning and implementation of initiatives and computer literacy. The direct users of the project results will be 3229 people from the three villages and gradually the citizens of the whole Haskovo Municipality.
Summary of project results
The project aimed to improve the democratic culture and increase civic participation in the Municipality of Haskovo. In this regard, the HALO Foundation and the Municipality of Haskovo have developed a Citizens’ Budgets program, which directly involves citizens in the processes of making proposals, making decisions at the local level and implementing these decisions. The program was piloted in three villages in the municipality - Voyvodovo, Malevo and Stamboliyski. The residents of the three villages presented a total of 20 ideas for civic initiatives, chose by voting for each of the villages which initiatives to be implemented and finally with a lot of enthusiasm, creativity and a budget of 1500 € implemented 8 civic initiatives.
During the project, the residents of the villages of Voyvodovo, Malevo and Stamboliyski were included in a series of consultations and trainings on digital skills, advocacy, civic participation. This has led to the construction of a valuable local resource, new informal leaders have emerged who can inspire and unite the local community in the implementation of civic initiatives. Thanks to the consultations and the partnership with the Municipality of Haskovo, 5 local problems were solved.
The Citizens’ Budget Program developed within the project is a tool in the "hands" of the local administration, which can be applied in various situations - improvement of public spaces, development of social entrepreneurship, responding to specific needs of local communities in a short time, etc. The pilot implementation of the program convinced local authorities of its effectiveness and established it as a mechanism for involving citizens in solving problems at the local level. HALO Foundation and Haskovo Municipality are working to expand the territorial scope of the program, provide funds for its regular implementation and create a multidisciplinary advisory council of local experts with diverse expertise (lawyers, architects, financiers, NGO and business representatives, representatives of local institutions) to take an active part in the implementation of the Citizens’ Budgets Program.