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Description
One of the Foundation''s goals is to ensure the democratic functioning of the state. The OKO.press and TOK FM survey, as of March 20-23, 2023, shows that 44 per cent of people aged 18-49 will not vote in the parliamentary elections. Our mission is to improve the legal situation of women and excluded people. Motivating voters from these groups to take part in voting may have a real impact on the way their interests are represented in state bodies. We want to show how to verify information and encourage the voter not to choose a representative solely on the basis of mainstream media coverage, but to check which of the candidates will effectively take care of matters important to them. We want to educate that every correctly cast vote matters. Showing an individual that they are part of a community that also does not know who to vote for can arouse a sense of belonging as well as responsibility and agency - and thus encourage voting and give it meaning. We care about maintaining political impartiality in our activities. Our goal is to explain the electoral system and build engagement in social life and help people define their own political views using reliable sources and tools. The main target group of our activities will be people aged 18-30 who do not identify with any political group, because they are the ones who most often do not vote. We want to take action to smaller counties in the Pomeranian Province, where voter turnout is lower than in large cities. Additional recipients of our activities will be people from the Foundation''s "bubble", i.e. mainly young and middle-aged women from the Pomeranian Province, whom we will reach through our communication channels. With the grant funding, we hope to develop these channels and expand our audiences, as well as increase community and its engagement so that we can reach a larger group with our message.
Summary of project results
The aim of the project was to conduct turnout-promoting activities to encourage young people to participate in the elections. Additionally, it should be noted that the target group of the project also included people who had so far been reluctant to participate in elections or, despite their willingness to participate in elections, were undecided who they would vote for. After many conversations with Pomeranians, we noticed that many people felt uncertainty and indecision. Our campaign''s activities were intended to give many people the opportunity to make more active and conscious decisions and to obtain knowledge about candidates in an easy and accessible way. Moreover, it should be noted that our project was aimed at Pomeranians.
1) We have collected over 400 topics that Pomeranians consider invisible in the public sphere,
2) We divided the topics into 10 categories, we consulted each of them with experts in a given field, on this basis we created our questionnaire consisting of 63 questions: inzdrowietematy.pl, which we then also consulted with a sociologist and an anthropologist,
3) 55 politicians answered our questions in the questionnaire,
4) We organized 5 debates with politicians and representatives of civil society on the following topics: migration, reproductive rights, climate crisis, education, mental health and rights of minorities, voters filled out our quiz: inwidzetematy.pl
5) We held information meetings on the electoral system at the Secondary School No. 14 in Gdańsk, at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Gdańsk, the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Gdańsk, SWPS in Sopot and the Gdańsk University of Technology,
6) In cooperation with SCG, Wschód and ECS, we organized the "It will be better in my time" event at the B90 club, during which concerts, discussion panels and a silent disco took place,
7) We organized "The last happening before the election silence", during which we encouraged people to participate in the elections,
8) We created numerous election materials, of which our video about the refusal to take part in the referendum reached 23,000.00 people,
9) We put up 2,000 turnout posters in various places in Tricity,
The greatest effect of our activities was giving voters a voice. Thanks to our project, people previously uninterested in politics could present their problems thanks to the invisibletematy.pl platform, where we collected topics that Pomeranians consider invisible in the public sphere. 55 politicians responded to our questionnaire. 8,000 voters completed the questionnaire. Moreover, another method that the beneficiaries of our program could use was the opportunity to directly confront a selected politician during debates organized during the campaign. We organized 5 debates with candidates for the Polish Parliament. For people who did not want to get involved in political topics in any way, we chose even more accessible forms, e.g. participation in silent disco or concerts. In cooperation with SCG, Inicjatywa Wschód and ECS, we also organized the "It will be better in my time" event at the B90 club, during which concerts, discussion panels and a silent disco took place. Several hundred people took part in the event. Thanks to our campaign, undecided people and those not involved in any way in electoral activities gained the necessary information and knowledge that allowed them to make an informed choice during the parliamentary elections. Thanks to the modern tools used in our project, it was also available to younger people who had not had any contact with civic and political topics before.