Croatian region of Slavonija has faced many challenging situations over the last 30 years. The result of hardships is depopulation, followed by lack of positive attitude, inovation, networking and public visibility for civil organisations in rural areas.
The aim of the project is to empower, multiply, educate and mentor the organistions of civil sector in the municipality of Čaglin through series of workshops and educations, as well as to create ideas for future projects and actions.

The project will take place mainly in Čaglin municipality and Požeško-slavonska county, Croatia.

Požeško-slavonska is the poorest Slavonian region and municipality of Čaglin is the least populated, facing many issues with deopopulation being the main one.
There is a lack of non-formal, educational, creative, cultural, and cooperative activities between the public and the civic organisations which magnifies the public apathy and directly affects the quality of life in the region.
The civil initiatives and NGOs are focused on small group of users, with no strategy, civic education, confidence or public support to influence/cooperate with decision makers to create a positive change for the future generations on this area.
The young population of the region has lack of access to non-formal content and positive example of active citizenship.

We would include 10 different organisations (initiatives, NGOs, public institutions), from different villages around the municipality of Čaglin.
All of them have different background and different target groups.
Through the project, we will provide logistic, educational and mentoring support in drafting, planning and executing the public activities co-hosted by 10 interest groups.

The idea is to reach out and connect the different types of users through collaboration in working, educational, culture public events, and use the activities to achieve the goals - long term partnership and raised awarenes about benefits of active citizenship.
We would include 30 participants from the interest groups, and directly reach minimum of 500 local people through workshops and public events.

Project activities are divided into 5 major phases (with duration):
1) Mapping of 10 participating intiatives/NGO/institutions to be included in the project, their resources, ideas, common points etc. - through public call / past and present cooperation organisations (2 months)
2) Meetings and education, empowering, brainstorming, discussions, skill sharing etc. (4 months)
3) Drafting, design and implementation of local initatives/actions/presentations on different locations in the county - public actions (2 months)
4) Final public event - reaching the wider public - presentation of the project, results, participants, public discussion (2 months)
5) Project proposal workshop and project ideas for future cooperation with the 10 participating groups (1 month)

The expected results are:
- creation of local network of 10 initiatives, NGOs and instituions
- 30 representatives from participating organisations are educated, inspired and empowered to independently create and conduct local activities
- 10 locally drafted ideas have been implemented in the community
- 1 open public event organised showing the results and positive impact in the local community to the wider public and governing institutions
- 5 ideas drafted for future project proposals between participating organisations

The local community, as well as participating organisations and governing institutions will see and experience the benefits of active citizenship. Marginalised rural areas will realise that they are not government dependent to make positive changes.

It is our experience that, once people get a taste of active civic participation, they start to experience the public wellbeing as their own wellbeing.
We would like to rekindle the flame of trust, cooperation and mutual support in our community, to break the chains of repeated choices, predjudice and stereotypes between different ethnical, gender and age groups in our municipality through organised public events "by the locals - for the locals", using local initiatives and NGOs as initators of positive change.
We would like to first hear and discuss, from the ground up, what are the problems and possible solutions that we can take as an community, and then see what are the options of solving them together, through project proposals, working actions, petitons, government appeals etc.

Work that Eco Centre Latinovac put into community building is much more than a job for us. It is an direct action aimed to raise the quality of life of current and future residents of the region, and we are one of them.

All of us want to stay and live here, we want to create and have a future here. We want to create an positive example of sustainable, democratic, resilient and connected community to pave the way for future generations.

We want to shake things up, wake up the local people and make them aware of posibilities that active citizenship, dialogue and diversity can offer, in terms of life quality and positive changes.

With this idea realised, we would have the support to make the next step of re-vitalisation of not just our rural community, but others as well.

Office expenses 2000 EUR
Travel expenses 3000 EUR
Accomodation 3000 EUR
Personnel costs 21000 EUR
Public relations 2000 EUR
Public events 5000 EUR
Activity costs 11000 EUR
Indirect costs 3000 EUR

We would like to know if our idea is clear and concise - don't be afraid to point out if some parts are not clear!

Are there other rural communities in similar situation - low funding and public visibility of civil sector. Maybe we could cooperate to solve the issue?