Project stages

• Selection of neighborhoods – In November 2009, the first two neighborhoods were chosen – Lacul Tei and Favorit (Drumul Taberei). In April 2010, three more areas were selected – Grivita-Titulescu, Callatis-Drumul Taberei and Maica Domnului. The last neighborhood, Dristor, was selected in August 2010.
• Door-to-door interviews – In all the areas mentioned above, the community organizers conducted more than 100 door-to-door interviews to identify the problems faced by the residents and to collect the improvement ideas suggested by them.
• Identifying potential leaders – through door-to-door interviews, community organizers also identified residents interested in actively getting involved in solving problems. They were invited to work together in some informal civic initiative groups.
• Problem selection – in four of the areas – the Lacul Tei, Callatis and Favorit neighborhoods from Drumul Taberei and the Titulescu-Grivita area, the citizens from the initiative groups, with the help of the CeRe team, organized meetings to prioritize the problems. During these meetings, the most important problems of the community were discussed and the participants decided by voting what their priorities were. In Lake Tei, four main issues were voted on: cleanliness, parking and circulation, citizen safety and thermal rehabilitation. Five themes of interest were selected in Favorit: the Favorit cinema, parks and green spaces, cleanliness, abandoned cars and citizens’ safety. A similar result was achieved by the meetings in Callatis (lack of parking spaces, peace and safety of citizens, the problem of stray dogs, the arrangement of green spaces, cleanliness around the blocks and thermal rehabilitation) and Titulescu-Grivita (the effects of the construction of the Basarab passage, safety on the streets). In Maica Domnului, the priority problem taken over by the group was the lack of trash cans.
• The civic group in action – after the neighborhood meetings, working groups were formed around the selected issues. In most cases, within a few months of formation, the working groups met in a single initiative group and decided to tackle one problem at a time. With the help of the community organizers, the initiative groups documented the problems, identified the public authorities responsible for solving them and decided how to approach them. Some of the groups – Lacul Tei and Callatis – achieved success a few months after the steps they initiated. Where the problems were more complex – Favorit and Titulescu – the approaches resulted in promises, and in some cases – Maica Domnului – the requests of the citizens were met with the authorities’ faceless refusal. In 2010, in Lacul Tei, after several steps with the Administration of the Public Domain Sector 2 – petitions and hearings, the group of citizens managed to convince them to build a sidewalk on an alley heavily trafficked by cars. In 2011, the group focused on finding a solution for the shortage of parking spaces. In Callatis-Drumul Taberei, one month after the actions of the initiative group, the authorities decided to comply with their request and to sanitize and pave an alley between two schools used as a playground and a garbage dump. In Favorit, the citizens organized, in August 2010, an awareness event related to the fate of the Favorit cinema and demanded that it be transformed into a cultural and recreation center. 3 months after the event, Cristian Poteras, the mayor of sector 6, announced in a press conference that the Favorit cinema will become a cultural center. Because the promise was not fulfilled by concrete actions, in 2011, with the help of CeRe, the group was involved in a Photovoice process. The young people in the area sent messages to the authorities for the rehabilitation of the cinema and the whole area with the help of the images. The opening of the exhibition – “I opened my eyes for Favorite”, organized in May 2011, raised an alarm about the state of degradation of the cinema and asked the present authorities to urgently rehabilitate it. As a result of these actions, at the end of May 2011, the City Hall of Sector 6 allocates, through budgetary rectification, the amount necessary to carry out the feasibility study for the future Favorit Cultural Center.
• Training for leaders of civic groups – CeRe organized in November 2010 a training attended by members of initiative groups from each neighborhood. The course was an opportunity for them to get to know each other and to share the experience accumulated up to that point, but also to improve their communication and negotiation skills and to accumulate notions of advocacy and legislation in the field of public participation.
• Meetings with other NGOs – In April 2011, CeRe facilitated the exchange of information and expertise and encouraged the formation of links between NGOs and citizens that would lead to future collaborations on topics of common interest. The organizations present at the event were Vier Pfoten, the National Association of Citizens’ Advice Bureaux – ANBCC, the Noi Orizonturi Foundation, Save the Danube and Delta, Recolamp, Pro DoMo and Art Fusion.

Although the “Back to the roots” project ended in May 2011, CeRe continued to support the initiative groups from Lacul Tei, Favorit and Callatis (Drumul Taberei). For more details, visit the page of the community organization program and the blogs of the initiative groups:

• Favorite initiative
• Callatis
• Lake Tei

Project duration:

September 2009 – May 2011

Partners:

Center for Community Organizing from Slovakia www.cko.sk – With more than 10 years of experience in the field of community organizing, CKO provided consultancy to community organizers throughout the project through training sessions, online communication and field visits.

Funder:

Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe – www.ceetrust.org

The catalog presents the story of three citizen initiative groups – Lacul Tei, Callatis-Drumul Taberei and Favorit – formed and assisted by CeRe within the “Back to the roots” project. The material also includes a presentation of the community organization method and the role of the community organizer.