Communities are Fortresses of Freedom! – Networking and empowering NGOs and communities online and offline
In a number of European countries, civil society structures are struggling to engage enough participants, activists, members for their missions and actions. Local grassroots NGOs and informal communities, which are established or gathered for a very concrete local issue, often exist only till the initiator has enough energy, enthusiasm and motivation and not until their mission is completed. Moral and financial sustainability for these civil society actors are real challenges. Informal groups and online communities have a great potential to efficiently represent needs, ideas, decisions of local people and become key potential players in the civil and public sector. Professional NGOs are often mainly focusing on their mission, especially what their leaders, members, volunteers want to achieve and very rarely map out local issues and needs. Even less often they seek for constant communication and cooperation with local people. This pilot project aims to understand these phenomena and targets to initiate bridges between local NGOs, local informal groups and online communities in one particular selected city in each of the partner countries.
News and updates:
- Community Development Training (16 and 18 Oct 2019 in Sofia)
- Take Away Toolkit for Community Leaders
- Interview with Katerina Stoyanova from CVS-Bulgaria,
- Interview with Ruby Moore from Creatives-Sofia/Artist Tree Sofia,
- Interview with Giuseppe_di Benedetto from Foreigners in Sofia and Friends
- Mapping of Civil Society Structures that Work with Migrants and Refugees in Bulgaria
Time frame: January – November 2019
Partners: Cromo Foundation (Hungary) – leading partner, Voluntary Youth Association (Azerbaijan), Social Impact Hub Effendi Villa (Georgia), ASBA Foundation (Armenia), 4Change (Portugal), Multi Kulti Collective (Bulgaria)
Funding: Robert Bosch Foundation
