C a s e S t u d y

FUTURE FOR THE YOUTH MOVEMENT

Executive Summary

The movement Future for the Youth was established in Haskovo on March 16, 1998. Its goal is to support children and young people s development in the Municipality of Haskovo through unifying community efforts. The constituents of this movement our intend to offer an innovative model for citizen participation in solving significant problems of community development.

Situational Assessment/Problem Statement

There are more than 40 NGOs in Haskovo, both local and representatives of external organizations. Each of them works on different projects (government, non-government, business) and to a different extent offers and seeks partnership with the Municipality. There is a lack of consistency and coordination in the efforts on both sides, which leads to lesser efficiency of programs implemented by the municipality and the separate organizations.

This is why establishing interaction mechanisms and a citizen participation system is so important to community development. The Technical Twinning Program offered us the exceptional opportunity to start the development and implementation of such a model.

The project was initiated in March, 1998, by Bill Kelly from the Township of Abington, employees of Municipality of Haskovo and representatives of NGOs in Haskovo. Our first task was to identify the problem on the basis of which to develop a citizen participation model. Although the members of the group represented different organizations with different goals, the problem of supporting children and young people's development was unanimously identified as most important.

By applying the approaches and techniques shared by our American counterparts our group grew from 15 to 150 members - prominent community leaders, NGO representatives, representatives of national and local government, business people - all to some extent working on the problems of children and young people, ready and willing to support their development.

Project Description and Timeline of Activities

Within the project, a Future for the Youth Movement will be established as a model for unifying community efforts. The following approach was chosen for project implementation:

• problem selection by a motivated group for citizen participation

• division of group members into sub-groups working on:

- youth strategy development

- providing the resources necessary for strategy implementation

• identifying potential supporters within the business community, national and local government institutions, citizens, NGOs

• organizing public meeting:

- with citizens and representatives of different organizations who would participate in youth strategy development; establish Future for the Youth Movement

- with prominent representatives of national and local government, business, community, who could be motivated to work for the implementation of the strategy

- with the media who should inform the public about the Movement and its goals, in order to attract more supporters

- work in groups to develop the strategy and provide the resources for its implementation

- implementation of specific activities and projects for, and with, Haskovo's young people.

Although the strategy is long-term and is still being developed, some important steps towards its implementation have already been made. Some of these are:

• establishing a working public structure (Future for the Youth Movement) unifying community's efforts for success

• building a team of municipal and organizational representatives that will develop and implement the strategy

• 11 work sessions of coordinators and teams

• 3 publications in the local media and bulletins presenting the Movement and motivating support

• implementation of several joint activities

• initiation of the following projects:

- social adaptation and employment for young people in unequal position

- Is there work for the youth? media campaign

- education in regional history

- Small Pallette - support for young talents

- Best Teenager D.J. competition

- No to Crime and Drugs

- citizen police academy.

Benefits

The process of motivating active citizen participation in solving significant community development problems, is long and controversial. Even though Future for the Youth Movement has a very short history, the following benefits of its existence could already be identified:

• what is most important to us is that citizens and different institutions (municipal, national, non-government, business) begin to understand the benefits of participating, jointly or individually, in solving community problems;

• Future for the Youth Movement offered many people and organizations the opportunity to meet each other and establish partnerships;

• interaction and coordination between the Municipality and citizen organizations were improved, as well as interaction between the organizations;

Conclusion

In conclusion, we would once again like to express our thanks for the exceptional opportunity offered by the Bulgarian Technical Twinning Program in introducing innovative practices in the development of Municipality of Haskovo. We believe that Future for the Youth Movement as a sustainable structure for citizen participation, as well as the approaches and practices applied in forming it and in its work, are a successful model for community development which could be replicated in other public areas.

The establishment of a NGO Regional Information Center in Haskovo is a good example for successful replication of the model. The Center was created in 1999 in a response to the new needs assessment by NGOs from Haskovo region. It is a proof of the successful adoption of techniques and approaches for unifying community efforts. The goal of the Regional Information Center is to disseminate information on important issues or events, organized by different NGOs. The Center develops its activities as a result of the fruitful cooperation between the member NGOs and supports partnerships with other organizations from the Municipality and the region leading to broader community support for important events. The successful creation of the Regional Information Center in Haskovo is a confirmation that attitudes in the Municipality of Haskovo are changing and the different organizations are unifying efforts to work in partnership for community development.