The project will involve 8 schools from Clisura Dunării as community development agents. The pecific objectives: to develop competences of 40 teachers to implement educational community based methods; to involve 80 students, their families and 25 local key leaders in implementing of community development projects (to create a critical mass of change).
The impact will be created through photo-voice and theatre-forum projects focusing on problems, solutions and involvement of community members.

Eșelnița, Dubova, Svinița (MH), Berzasca, Coronini, Sichevița, Gîrnic, Șopot (CS), SV-Romania

The region of the project is a marginalized one, situated at the border of two Romanian counties (MH and CS) and two development regions (W and S-W), at the border of the EU (with Serbia), between Carpathian mountains and Danube; it has 17.500 inhabitants.

An important specificity of the area are the compact segregated ethnic communities (ethnic villages) of Serbians, Czech, and Romanian and some Roma communities integrated in Romanian villages.

The local communities need local resources to create development, they need to increase their social capital and to use it as development resources.

Schools of the region are still closed institutions, focused only on education and without awareness of their responsibility of community development or civic involvement.

The project is focused on the link between school and community or community development and education. The target group of the project, children, community members and direct beneficiaries will be: 40 teachers (training), 80 students and their families, 25 adults-directly involved in the project activities.

A secondary group of beneficiaries will be community members which will directly benefit from the activities (as public at theatre-forum enactments and photo-voice exhibitions). All the enactments will be planned to run during the local events – thus, we expect to have more than 2.000 active participants in the project events.

Facilitation as the main method of the project will assure an open process based on door-to-door meetings, local leaders’ involvement and open meetings.

1.Training for teachers and leaders on: community development (school as change agent) and non-formal educational methods based on community action (photo-voice, theatre-forum etc.)-4 days residential training.
2.Community facilitation-door to door interviews and open meetings for problems, opportunities and solution identifying. Initiative groups will be started, one problem or opportunity will be chose and the local projects will be initiated and planed.
3.Projects implementation. Min.12 projects based on Theatre-forum and Photo-voice will be implemented during local events.
4.Results dissemination. Best practice guideline (on-line format) with project results will be distributed in the networks of our members.
5.Project evaluation-a meeting of evaluation including beneficiaries.

Outputs and Results:
1.Training on community development and on non-formal educational methods – 40 teachers and community leaders (2 groups)
2.Schools (institutions) involved in the project-8;
3.Facilitated processes in communities-min 10 communities/villages;
4.Initiative groups organized (teachers, students, parents, local leaders)-10;
5.Theatre-forum representations-min 6
6.Photo-voice exhibitions-min 6
7.Direct beneficiaries (public)-min 2000 (local and tourists);
8.CDS (Curriculum at the school decision)-min 4 schools will develop CDS based on project activities.
9.Best practices guide-in on-line format.
10.Evaluation meeting-min. 20 participants.

Impact of the project. All schools from the 8 LAG communes will be more aware of community problems and opportunities.

The objectives of the project will be to involve 40 teachers, 80 students and their families and 25 adults (local leaders) in order to develop community projects.

In a facilitated process, they will be supported to identify local needs and to develop small projects based on non-formal educational methods (such as photo-voice and theatre-forum) in order to involve the community members in solving the own needs.

Many local problems and project ideas will be linked with citizenship and democracy and once we create around school the platform for initiating local projects to solve local needs or to achieve local opportunities – we will offer the instruments for future democracy and active citizenship projects.

The project is more focused on the process than the specific results.

CD LAG is an organization focused on Local Economic Development, especially based on tourism. Our mission is focused on increasing social capital and participation in the area and in our vision youth education is generally present.

Schools are an important resource of community development and we cannot approach participation without education.

Lacking resources, local development in the area is a chimera without social capital development (trust, generalized reciprocity and networks), which would strengthen participation and democratic decisions.

Even though LAG’s mission is not directly linked with democracy – community development of our region is possible if we will assume our mission to promote and strengthens democracy at the local level.

Staff – 5000 – covered by CD LAG from our resources already planned in our 2021 budget.
Training costs – trainers, transport, accommodation, meals equipment – 20.000 EUR
Local events – 16 events – 16.000 EUR
Meeting – facilitation process – 8.000 EUR
Staff transport and accommodation – 2000 EUR
Office expenses – 4000EUR;

Initiation of school projects in partnership with the local community;
Best practice guidelines in schools involved as a change agent in the communities;
Fundraising for local small projects;
Interactive methods similar with photo-voice and theatre-forum.