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...
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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.
PCD programme is implemented in one new Red Cross branch (Otocac) and continued in local Red Cross branches of Darda, Slatina, Beli Manastir and Ogulin; for the benefit of people exposed to poverty and discrimination such as Roma, vulnerable minorities and other marginalized groups within local communities.
Road safety is the main issue that the micro-project in Slatina is targeting.