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Description
In this project, we are strengthening a group of people involved in advocacy for NGOs in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Province, who are active in the Good Law Forum we run. Within the Forum we deal with monitoring legislation important to NGOs and their activities and proposing changes to the law. Our aim in this project is to create a sustainable advocacy resource for the third sector in the region involving more people and entities and fostering community engagement. The project is needed because NGO advocacy activities are being conducted less and less, and those with experience in conducting them are increasingly experiencing professional burnout. There is a lack of other active people in the NGOs to bolster their enthusiasm and commitment. As part of the project, we develop the competences of the participants of the Good Law Forum, plan new activities together and look for model solutions for the consultation of public documents. We promote advocacy attitudes among citizens and NGOs in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Province through trainings for citizens and NGO staff and organise a competition to support advocacy activities. As a result of the project, a sustainable expert base for the third sector in the region will be created and the Good Law Forum will strengthen its role as a space for discussion and debate. The group of individuals and organisations engaging in community advocacy will also expand. Two additional activities in the project are two elements of institutional development of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations: creating the concept of an online document consultation tool and building support, including financial support, for the Federation''s activities among individuals.
Summary of project results
The project responded to:
*the problem of declining interest of non-governmental organizations in participating in participatory processes,
* the challenge of developing the activity and competences of participants of the Good Law Forum, i.e. a non-governmental expert team run by the Federation, and to the challenge of maintaining the unity and coherence of the Forum by undertaking joint activities in previously unused formulas,
* the problem of the decline in quality observed in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship and the departure from good practices of inter-sectoral cooperation previously developed together with non-governmental organizations
In the project, we focused on consolidating a group of people active in advocating the interests of non-governmental organizations in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship - gathered in the Good Law Forum run by the Federation - towards a permanent and expert substantive base for the third sector in the region. Therefore, we carried out activities aimed at developing the competences of Forum participants (including by creating a task team of participants and two thematic training courses), joint planning of activities and taking up new challenges (including through involvement in consultation processes, testing tools for advocacy activities that we have not used before, such as surveys, mini-reports on activities and videos about activities), on the joint search for model solutions for consultations of public documents (including by implementing consultation processes and drawing conclusions for model processes of such consultations), as well as on the dissemination of advocacy attitudes among citizens and non-governmental organizations in the voivodeship (including by conducting training for NGO staff and a competition to support advocacy activities).
As a result of the project, in addition to the experiences listed above, we created a study on model document consultations, we developed the Forum''s Action Plan for the next three years, and we created the concept of an online tool for online document consultations. We have new contacts, new ideas and we have gained new practice by creating mini-reports on activities, videos about advocacy and conducting surveys. Additionally, we have implemented two activities aimed at the institutional development of the Federation. One concerns the quality of our activities - the above-mentioned concept of a tool for online document consultation, which is an idea for the expansion, modernization and effective use of our consultation website sto-konsultacja.pl, thanks to which more organizations and people will benefit from the opportunity to participate in the processes shaping public policies. The second is to develop an idea and a plan to finance the Federation from sources that have not been used before sources, i.e. fundraising among individuals and business activities. As a result of the project, we know what actions we want to take and how to carry them out. Both activities were created as a result of the work of two thematic teams appointed from among representatives of our member organizations, who, by sharing their experiences, submitting proposals and ideas, influence the manner, scope and quality of operation of the network organization to which their parent organizations belong.