“Citizen Participation National Meeting”
Author: Carmen Shadelhofer, Ulm, Germany
Abstract: The General Assembly of Citizen Participation Forum invited the 17th – 18th March, 2016 to a Conference for the Bulgarian Network for Citizen Participation as well as a DCSF Executive Committee Meeting had been on the 16th of May.
The ,Citizen Participation National Meeting’ was organized and performed by the ,Citizen Participation Forum’ under the leadership of Iva Taralezhkova. The meeting was financially supported by the ,Charles Stuard Mott Foundation’ and others. About 80 representatives of the Bulgarian civil society organizations participated.
The board of the ,Danube Civil Society Forum’ (DCSF) was invited to participate in this Meeting. The President of the DCSF, Stefan Lütgenau, presented the basic idea and the work of DCSF, namely to achieve participation in the Danube area also on the political level of the Danube strategy.
The meeting itself comprised three sections. After the opening by Iva Taralezhkova the first round dealt with the topic ,The change around us’. Here, representatives of economy, politics and science reported about their experiences with voluntary change or change forced by circumstances, and what positive effect change can have. The communication scientist Margarita Ascadurova pointed out that in Bulgaria the word ,change’ has a negative connotation and is rather associated with fear and worries than with something positive. This would be one of the reasons why in Bulgaria the fear of ,change’ is so big.
The second round dealt with ,The change, we work for’. Here, various representatives of civil society projects presented their work and outlined the future from their perspective.
The third round dealt with ,How do we change environment? With whom do we work?’. Here, small groups were formed that worked on given questions in different rounds of questions, the results were presented in the end. In the evening a Viennese Ball with dinner took place and great enthusiasm for this type of being together could be felt.
The next morning an active ,Citizen Dialogue’ between politicians and representatives of civil society organizations and the general meeting took place.
The event was very well organized, the contributions were very fruitful and there was a lively participation in the discussions.
For us members of the DCSF it was a good chance to become more familiar with the work of the Bulgarian civil society organizations and their situation and to get to know the various representatives personally.
Thank you very much for this.
Carmen Stadelhofer
Member of the DCSF-Board
President of DANET
Pictures: Emilia Velikova and Carmen Stadelhofer