Legnica’s Citizen Initiative Association (LSIO) was established in 1999 as a result of about a dozen friends coming together and committing to a common passion – development of civil society and activation of people living in the Lower Silesia region. For several years the team had been gaining experience and becoming more and more professional. The first half of past decade brought a major change as new ways of fulfilling public tasks opened up in front of Polish non-governmental organisations. Since then the Association has carried out several dozen projects meaningful on local, subregional and regional level.
Due to assets like credibility in action, ability to diagnose needs effectively and expertise in gaining external funds, as well as realising numerous social initiatives, Legnica’s Citizen Initiative Association became a strong support and a natural partner for many entities in the region.
OUR ACTIONS
The greatest strength of the Association is its interdisciplinary and professional team that allows for performing a wide range of actions. That includes:
- support in personal development and social activation of young and elderly people (School for Social Leaders, seminars, coaching, …)
- professional activation and creating equal opportunities for people threatened by social exclusion (counselling and professional trainings, social integration, work with their environment, …)
- incubation and support in development of non-governmental organisations (legal and financial counselling, esp. in gaining external funds, …)
- strengthening the cooperation between local government, non-governmental organisations and business (animation, multi-sector partnerships, conferences, …)
- building participative model of democracy (public consultations, transparency of public life, access to public information, …)
- research in the field of civil society and activity of our region’s residents (studies, analyses, reports, …)
ADDITIONAL WORK FIELDS
Regional Centre of European Social Fund in Legnica operates since 6. February 2007. The Centre is led in cooperation with Regional Development Agency ARLEG Inc. in Legnica and Legnica’s Citizen Initiative Association.
The main goal of the Regional Centre of ESF in Legnica is supporting and creating regional development in the fields of labour market, education and social integration, which is done through delivering information, knowledge and skills related to the use of European Social Fund as well as stimulating and animating local environments – public institutions, non-governmental and business organisations – to actions aimed at building social capital.
Legnica’s Local Citizen’s Group – as one of directions of LSIO – acts for transparency of public life and wide access to public information. It raises awareness about, among others, expenditure of public funds and actions of public administration. It presents active forms of cooperation with citizens and takes legal actions counteracting breaking the law in terms of access to public information.
Legnica’s Citizen Initiative Association initiates and supports the work of consultative bodies accompanying Legnica’s local government.
Among them currently operate: City’s Public Benefit Works Council, Youth City Council and Seniors’ City Council.
Exemplary project
“The Youth Decides”
The main goal of the project is to increase civic participation of young residents of Legnica in city’s public life through creating “Youth Policy” based on research and insights of young people in our subregion. In the long term it will allow for establishing young people as partners in public discourse in Legnica’s local community.
Up to this moment (September 2014) most of the project’s actions have been carried out. That includes: research on youngsters’ knowledge and satisfaction with implementation of youth policies, youth debates, Legnica’s School for Social Leaders and multiple work meetings.
