15/09/2010
PACT, together with
CRONO Association (Nonprofit Resource Center for Oltenia) and CeRe (Resource Centre for Public Participation), marks the
Citizen Participation Week in Romania with the Regional Workshop "Open Method of Coordination and partnership in social inclusion", to take place on September 22nd, in Craiova.
The event is organized by PACT and its partners, as part of the project
"Building a viable social inclusion partnership between the NGO sector and public authorities" (June 2010 - February 2011), financed by the
Balkan Trust for Democracy. The project aims to build a NGO - public authorities partnership for an effective and viable strategy for social inclusion at national and local level, an important objective of the Social Europe. Representatives of local authorities and institutions in the region of Oltenia, with responsibilities in social inclusion, announced their presence at this workshop, together with specialized NGOs and community organizations.
The workshop is a joint initiative of the Working Group for the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in social inclusion, formed in October 2009 through
a project coordinated by PACT, in partnership with CeRe and CRONO, funded by the European Commission PROGRESS program. The OMC group includes NGOs active in social inclusion, working with representatives of the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection and other public authorities and local institutions. The Group aims to promote and support the Social OMC, as defined by the EU 2020 Strategy, through a tighter collaboration between social actors relevant in this field. The project consists in a series of workshops and seminars which will be concluded by a Future Search Conference on "Integrated Services for Social Inclusion", to take place in November 2010.
PACT is part of the
Central and Eastern European Citizens Network (CEECN) - a social development initiative involving 40 organizations from 20 countries. In May 2005, CEE Citizens Network passed a resolution that pledged to organize events to promote citizen participation in European media, politics and civil society, as part of the Citizens' Participation Week. These events will take place in all the 20 member states of the network, in the last week of September, each year.
At European level, Citizens' Participation Week, held this year between September 20th and 26th, consists in a series of events, calling for the society’s attention to the importance of participatory democracy and community welfare, by increasing citizen action. Citizens' Participation Week events program includes local, regional or national actions, media events, public meetings etc.
During the Citizens' Participation Week, local communities and NGOs present their initiatives for social improvement, as well as different professional and other initiatives that express their vision, before public authorities. These meetings underscore the importance of the dialogue and collaboration and seek to promote those civic initiatives that play a key role in the development of local communities. Moreover, in October 2009, the International NGO Conference, under the Council of Europe, adopted the
"Code of Good Practice for Civic Participation in the decision process”, to be implemented at local, regional and national level, in all the 47 countries of the Council of Europe and Belarus.
In the previous years, over 200 NGOs joined the Citizens' Participation Week program, obtaining commitments from local personalities and political leaders. This series of events had a large exposure in the local and international media. Citizens' Participation Week is the first event in which NGOs from 20 different countries together have supported a cause that, in most of these countries, was forbidden for decades.
Ads, press materials and posters campaign, and previous years reports can be accessed on the
web site dedicated to the CEE Citizens Network (
www.ceecn.net). See press release
here PPS campaign this year.
