The project is a laboratory that serves to create solutions for small, local communities for their strategic development & to prepare a working methodology for other local communities. Project aim is to increase the involvement of various social groups & environments in the process of strategic, social dialogue by means of two innovative methods. The project will involve min. 85 persons from: NGOs, local government, education & culture sector & the youth from the Sędziszowsko-Ropczycki District.

Sędziszowsko-Ropczycki District, Podkarpackie voivodship, south-east Poland

The aim is to implement an innovative methodology for building local development strategy with active participation of citizens of various backgrounds.
In the process of development of the present local strategies, in force by 2020, involvement of various groups of local stakeholders was not ensured. Actively involvement of the local communities is essential, due to:
- The new EU perspective,
- The need to increase the role of social initiatives,
- Growing popularity of ideas as Social Economy and Economy of Values.
Right now, there is neither an advisory body supporting local leaders nor a platform in the municipalities for discussions with local stakeholders operating. The Social Economy Centre is closed. Support is missing. Project activities fill these gaps.

Main target group of the project are the representatives & volunteers of NGOs (206 organizations), local leaders, local government, educational and cultural entities representatives, seniors (20% of the population), the youth (20.3% of the population), local business representatives.
The initiative will enable the involvement of the most active citizens (district population of 74,000) in building a development strategy for their local community. Currently they believe they are excluded from designing the directions of local development. The OST and SDD methods guarantee each project participant will have the opportunity to express & propose solutions; collected ideas will be systematized, recorded, published & further consulted also with other citizens, indirectly involved.

Planned activities:
1.Preparing analysis necessary for conducting the OST discussion (topics, working groups, methodology); involvement of 12 socially active participants.
2.Implementation of the Meeting - Active Citizens for a Joint Strategy (OST) - 85 participants.
3.Preparing the "White Paper" (institutional analysis, legal solutions, description of stakeholders)- a necessary element - in accordance with the SDD method for preparing the participants of the workshop and determining the so-called "Initial question".
4.Conducting the SDD workshop & developing "Influence maps" - max. 16 people.
5.Conducting a development workshop for local leaders.
6.Development of the methodological report-a tool for other local communities.
Transversal activities: promotion/information; management.

Expected Results:
a/Increasing in the activity of the local community in the process of building a community development strategy
b/increasing in the level of networking and cross-sectoral activities (NGO-local government-education-culture)
c/raising the level of group work competences
d/increasing the level of social trust (the basis for effective exchange of experience and the cooperation)
e/creating an innovative methodological path for small local communities that helps them to create local development strategies.
Creating a platform for exchanging ideas as well as activating residents and counteracting their passivity.
In a year - after completing the project:
a/12 trained local leaders,
b/developed "knowledge pills"-4
c/developed local development strategy assumptions-1.

Citizens engagement and participation is enhanced by:
-Involving citizens in local affairs directly
-creating space for expressing opinions & networking
-increasing participation in the decision-making process
-developing an activity model for small communities
-concentrating discussions around topics truly interesting for the local stakeholders
-creating space for designing ideas for socially beneficial activities.
The basis for effective citizens' activities is the opportunity to exchange experiences in an open but organized way. The project fills the existing gaps since: a platform for exchanging views of various local environments is created, competences of the local NGOs and leaders are involved and improved, a model of activity applicable for other communities is developed.

FAIE & GIR differ in character and experience, but have common goals and intrests. Mutual motivation is to create a model of building space for cooperation for various social groups to define development strategies for small local communities.
The motivation to implement the idea is:
- The desire to combine in a unique way 2 innovative methods of activating local communities: Open Space Technology and the Structured Democratic Dialogue Methodology.
- enabling participants to create space for debate independently; a long-term effect will be the creation of proposals for specific social activities
- Effective help to various groups of stakeholders in solving complex problems and reaching a consensus on the development strategy of their local communities.

Travel and Accomodation Cost – 4170 €
Personal Cost – 10110 €
Rent of meeting room – 2188 €
Information, promotion and dissemination cost – 7665 €
Catering – 1720 €
Office and project's management Cost – 2380 €
Training's materials for project's participants – 780 €
Equipment – 6225 €