We are a civic association of active locals in a small Slovak town Rožňava where we restore an abandoned monastery into a Cultural-Creative Centre Kláštor (´Monastery´). Apart from creative industry and cultural events we focus on development of local civic society (mainly local NGOs and active citizens) in the Regional Co-Working Centre for Civic Participation (part of our cultural centre open to public). We aim to further develop/trigger the quality of service offered to local actors.

Rožňava, small town in Gemer region, south-east Slovakia

Rožňava is a small town (20.000 inhabitants), but at the same time a regional centre of the Gemer region which is currently the least developed region of Slovakia, both economically as well as in terms of civic participation. The town and the region has a low density of civic cohesion and few possibilities for civic and political learning and engagement. Local NGOs and active citizens need a more solid background for their initiatives and projects we aim to create and maintain. Our initiative is the first more influential „oasis“ in the civic desert of our slowly developing town and region in years. For 8 years we have been actively co-shaping our community and we aim at creating an even more influential civic society development hub in our co-working space and cultural-creative centre.

We focus predominantly at local NGOs and active citizens (esp. students) with interesting ideas embracing social impact, community development, social cohesion, enterpreneurship spirit, innovation or likewise. Several NGOs have already launched their projects in our co-working hub. We have also started several cross-sectoral partnershis with local actors, i.e. local municipality, local high schools as well as several local NGOs. All these voices / opinions are needed to co-exist in the space of our co-working hub and raise a common dialogue. This dialogue supplemented with above-mentioned educational and training activities (done in the form of discussions, workshops and lectures) will gradually influence and trigger the whole growing community as well as its individual actors.

We will organise a series of workshops followed by discussions on topics carefully focused on the local context: 1-Anticorruption and transparency minimum; 2-Green town in the times of climate change; 3-Bridging and empowering communities - making solidarity and fellowship more tangible; 4-How to set quality grant schemes at the municipal level; 5-Participatory maximum; 6-Responsible mobility. These activities will trigger common forum for informal meetings of active citizens, NGOs, municipal deputes, motivated students, representatives of different minorities, and general public within our co-working hub which will lead into community boost. Investment into IT technology and furniture would enable us to increase the capacity of our co-working space - provide more space for new ideas.

If our idea is selected, there will be enough energy and time for activities that would increase the number of participants in our co-working hub. This would lead to a more self-sufficient model of our project. The most important direct impact, however, would be a considerable support of NGOs and active citizens and students in our town and region who will be able to join our co-working space any time they wish and will be supported by a team helpful to develop their ideas and projects. We can do this even in case our idea is nor supported, however to a minor extent (in such case it will provide the premises for these actors but only with a symblic support). In case our idea is selected - it will make us able to activate local actors to a high extent and it will make the community grow.

By creating Regional Co-Working Centre for Civic Participation we prepared a proper creative hub for local actors (predominantly NGOs and active citizens) that serves for the development of local civic society. We aim to organize a series of educational activities for local actors that would advance their expertise. We plan to organise thematic workshops with experts followed by locally embedded discussions on topics connected to quality local governance and interconnectedness with public. The content has been identified during our previous activities on civic society and citizen participation. We also aim at inspiring more locals to be more active in their civic life and to engage in an initiative or even to create their own project that would lead to the community growth.

We feel that it is our mission in our community to develop it in this field. Nobody else does this job - neither local municipality contributes significantly to improving the civic society in our town to such an extent that would make us feel comfortable. We feel it is our scope - and thanks to our experience with similar projects we are able to maintain such a project and we are confident that it is our mission to act as leaders in this field in our community.

personnel costs (a.: coordinator of the educational activities; b.: experts for workshops and discussions carefully chosen for every particular topic in our concept, as described above) 27.000 EUR
expenses connected with new IT technology and furniture that would enable us to increase the capacity of our co-working space 12.000 EUR
office expenses 3.000 EUR
expenses on marketing 3.000 EUR
travel and accomodation costs 2.000 EUR

We would like to receive any kind of advice or comments on our idea that would make our concept better or self-sufficient in the future.