The PCD workshop in Budapest is under preparation.

The participants are the PCD Coordinators from the NSs in the region: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Austrian and Finnish Red Cross (with an option of a participant from Tajikistan).

The agenda will include work on the lessons learnt, as well as on the future of the PCD as a programme but also as a methodology, used by the Red Cross/Red Crescent in its work with the communities.

A part of the workshop will be dedicated to the coming changes in the structure of the IFRC as well as practical arrangemens of the Regional PCD programme.

Main facilitator: Branimir Knezevic, Regional OD Coordinator and Acting Head of Office

Water taps, pipelanes and work was donated by "Komstan" company, Trstenik

Monitoring & Assessment Mission in Montenegro was initiated by IFRC Regional Delegation in Budapest and realised by Dragan Milosevic, member of Experts & Practitioners PCD Regional Team.

PCD is running as a program in RCM. In this very moment it is hard to expect more, more in the meaning of using participatory approach as a way of doing all of the programs inside National Society. This fact is related to the numerous activities and the fact that is less than one year of independent existence (if we put aside fact that RCM was founded in 1875).

PCD pilot project, launched in Podgorica (capital of Montenegro) in 2003, as well as two-phase project in Bar (the biggest harbour) are living its “own life” which means that sustainability was successfully reached. In LRCB Niksic project is at the final stage. The other LRCB of RC Montenegro, Budva branch is actually running PCD and in this very moment are working on LGW preparation. In the purpose of that event, National PCD Coordinator, local PCD Coordinator, RC staff, PCD team members and IFRC monitor organised Community meeting in the Roma settlement. A lot of people were present and final agreement was reached about participation and usefulness of LGW. Local Roma leaders as well as present community members claimed that one person from each family will be present at LGW. In this Roma settlement there are 36 families with 156 members: 27 families are IDP′s (Kosovo), with 131∕2 members (two pregnant ladies – DURING OUR VISIT ONE BABY WAS JUST DELIVERED FROM HOSPITAL!) and 9 families with 23 members are local Roma population; 69 of them are under age of 18.

Anyhow, the initial support will be welcome to the National Society and more to the National PCD Coordinator as well as to young RCM staff which is giving an excellent impression and good perspective for the future. It was a pleasure to be a temporary part of that team. Future is open to them and it should be.

The Red Cross Guidelines on working with Roma and Other Marginalzied Groups are almost finalised. Final minor changes in design are taking place. The document is expected to be finalised and available in PDF format in 2 weeks. The final text only version is available in "Our Tools" section - here.

During 8-10.05 Dragan Milosevic (Serbia) and Milica Kovacevic (Montenegro RC National PCD Coordinator), have organized visits to Budva and Niksic in Montenegro.The mission of Dragan has the following purpose:
- to review the situation and the progress in the communities and support the National PCD Coordinator in monitoring and facilitation;
- to assist the National Coordinator facilitate the organization of the upcoming Large Group Workshop in Budva
- to support Milica in preparing the narrative and financial reports;
- to provide any support that could be needed, related to the programme implementation.Mission report and visual materials are expected soon.

A heavy schedule of two Large Group Workshops in two days was carried by the National PCD Coordinator of Croatian Red Cross, Ead Becirevic and a visit to another community (Darda) on the third day.

The LGS's were organized in Kozice, Slatina municipality on 10.04.07 and the area of  Beli Manastir on 11.04.07.

Good involvement of the local authorities, especially in Slatina. The person representing the authorities is a very active team member. The mayor himself was also present during the Large Group workshop, as well as both mayors (village and municipality) in Beli Manastir area.

Different challenges for the facilitators. People in Slatina (mainly women, husbands were working) are steadily focused on their home problems and kept insisting on Red Cross to solve them. The RC people have difficult time to overcome the self-oriented attitudes, partly caused by the RC history of humanitarian assistance.

The final community priority in Slatina is the safe access to the school and to the other part of the village. Community members will volunteer, and that will strenghten the community around the issue to solve. Making bridge is not a Red Cross main area, However with roles well distributed between the Red Cross (motivating and working with the volunteers), the authorities (providing funding, materials, engineering work, etc.) and the community (providing labor and people in the project team) the result could really be good and sustainable...
Find all photos on Slatina here.

Different situation in Beli Manastir - people participated well, including many youth and children, who became the focus for future micro-project.
The children - the group seen as most important by everybody in the LGW, will assure a very high level of participation and sustainability in the future. The rest of the people living in the main part of the village should be involved in the future. This could continue the PCD process (taking into account possible negative relations between the two groups in the area).

In Darda - very good meetings with Roma representatives - present and potential partners, preparing for interviews. After discussion it was agreed to carry on a community forum instead of interviews.

The Large Group Workshop in Trstenik, Serbia was organized on 19.04.2007. Facilitated by the National PCD team, the community focused on the hygiene and health by restoring drinking water supply as the topic of the community micro-project.

The Large Group Workshop in the community "Bair" in Bitola, Macedonia has ended the needs assessment stage for the PCD projects in all three communities in Macedonia. The focus and decision of the vulnerable community in Bitola is on youth activities.

A successful Large Group Workshop was carried on in Kriva Palanka, Macedonia on 20.03.2007. The community focused on youth and education.

From 13 to 16 March 2007 a PCD training was carried on in Tirana with branch secretaries, staff and volunteers from 7 branches of the Albanian Red Cross.

Facilitators:

Peter Yovkov (Regional PCD Coordinator, IFRC Budapest)
Shpend Emini (Programme Coordinator, IFRC Delegation Kosovo)
Xhilda Nushi (OD and Finance Coordinator, Albanian Red Cross)
Zhaneta Xhelili (Social Care and Tracing Coordinator, Albanian Red Cross)

Very warm athmosphere, strong team spirit.

The workshop focused on the Red Cross work and PCD methodology as a set of principles, approaches and tools, supporting the organization to get closer to beneficiaries, to transfer the initiative to the vulnerable people, establish partnerships and boost community development processes.
See the photos from the workshop here.

From 12th to 14th March the PRA training was organized in second local branch which will implement the PCD programme Trstenik.

The host of this training, the Red Cross local branch Trstenik made that team members feel very positive and this contributed the overall good three days training.

The PRA team in Trstenik will already next week conduct the semi structured interviews for need assessment of the Roma community and start together with the PCD national team to plan the Large Group Workshop.

More photos here.

In mid-March 2007, PRA training was carried on in Budva, Montenegro by the National PCD Coordinator. More care was needed in the case of Budva, where all local Red Cross staff is new and needed a good introduction to the programme and the role of the Red Cross itself.

In March 2007 the Regional PCD Coordinator and the National PCD Coordinator for Serbia have visited the Collective Center Zajecar, one of the communities selected for implementing PCD. A series of meetings were held, with the local branch secretary and with members of the community. The whole crew included other members of the PRA team such as the comendant of the camp (a very active person), people from the local institutions and from the community.
The problems of the community are very serious and various, starting from hygiene, lack of enough care for the children, obvious passiveness of the majority of people in the camp. Photos from the visit here.

The PCD in Trivodici village started with a meeting of various  local stakeholders at the Opening Community Meeting.

In 1 of March PRA training was carried on in Beli Manastir, Croatia, thus giving the start of the effective work in the community.

From 26th to 28th February 2007 the PRA training was held in the premises of the Red Cross local branch Zajecar.

National PCD team (Snezana Petrovic, Marija Pantic, Milica Jevtic and Sanja Drezgic Ostojic) organized and conducted the PRA training.

Having in mind the identified vulnerable community in Zajecar where the programme will be implemented the Red Cross local branch Zajecar formed the team which will during March asses the living conditions of the Roma people living in collective centre Grljan.

The impression is that this team will be successful during whole process of PCD programme. More photos here.

A 3 day training of the PRA team in the community in Kozice, Slatina area (Croatia) has started on 23.02.2007. More photos from the event here.

A PCD Training of Trainers was carried on from 19 to 21 of February 2007 in Tusnad, Harghita region, Romania. The purpose was to prepare people from two Red Cross branches of Satu Mare and Teleorman for starting PCD in 2 vulnerable communities in each region.
These PCD projects are aiming at reducing the risk of trafficking through use of participatory methodologies and involvement of the most risky groups (young people, especially girls) in the community development initiatives.
Find the photos from the training here.