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Description
In 2020 we carried out a project that made us realise that in Wrocław housing estates there are many activists who do not know who they can turn to with their initiatives. But even those civically engaged individuals know little about engagement options and communal work, including familiarity with Centra Aktywności Lokalnej (CAL) functioning in our city. We will address these problems by engaging active inhabitants of Wrocław in small-scale projects within their housing estates and getting them familiarised with the CAL activities. We will recruit volunteers from 11 Wrocław housing estates and will run for them workshops on social consultation moderation, effective event promotion, creative work methods, and creative problem solving. Participants will organise a meeting with housing estate residents to discuss their needs and ideas for social initiatives. Then we will jointly plan and implement initiatives in each housing estate. CAL venues will be utilised for meetings and workshops. Thanks to these projects we will show inhabitants that grassroots initiatives are possible and that they have positive impact on the development of the local community. The key role in implementing activities included in the project will be played by our partner - an informal group of housing estate leaders called ‘Grupa Lokalnie Zorientowanych’ that will share with us its wide experience in activities within housing estates. The group will help us recruit participants, promote and implement the initiative.
Summary of project results
The project responded to the problem of residents'' low level of involvement in the affairs of their immediate surroundings resulting from insufficient knowledge of the social and institutional infrastructure of the neighbourhoods in which they live. Although Wrocław is a city inhabited by numerous activists or people who could become such, the level of social involvement is still insufficient in relation to needs and potential.
Citizens do not always know how to effectively initiate and carry out certain activities in the public space, especially when it requires formal cooperation with other actors, local government. It is not uncommon that even active and committed citizens do not know how to make full use of the infrastructure created specifically to support citizens’ activities and initiatives, such as Local Activity Centres.
We managed to recruit 130 active local citizens, and the very fact that this number by far exceeded the number originally planned (which was 96) proves how important our project was for them. Participants included members of community organisations (Estate Councils, Local Activity Centres, local neighbourhood groups, associations), as well as unaffiliated but active residents. In each of the 13 settlements, we facilitated local groups and provided 780 hours of social service design workshops. We held 25 working meetings and organised 13 final initiatives. We gathered our experiences and reflections in a Good Practice Guide published in 200 copies and presented them in a spot promoting housing estate initiatives. During final conference of the project, which brought together residents of all housing estates, representatives of the local government, CAL network, Oława Coalition and members of NGOs, we organised a networking workshop, which became an opportunity to discuss the problems of the housing estates and to establish cross-neighbourhood cooperation. The model implementation of the 13 micro-projects presented at the conference showed the residents of the settlements that the implementation of bottom-up initiatives is sensible and possible.
The project was a great success, and its effects will be long-lasting. Participants not only gained confidence in their own powers by being able to jointly implement important projects for their local community, but also received concrete tools and knowledge that will enable them to implement local initiatives themselves in the future. New contacts and collaborations were established.