On 8 – 9 November 2013 the kick off event of the project DECIDE, funded by the Europe for Citizens programme, was held in Reggio Emilia, at the Loris Malaguzzi Centre.
DECIDE aims at developing, through the establishment of a thematic network of towns and by adopting a bottom-up approach, a democratic compact, namely a set of measures that are needed in Europe to increase the quality of democracy and citizen participation. ALDA leads the project, involving 24 partners from 14 countries. Present were Croatian partners as well, Local Democracy Agency Sisak and Town of Petrinja.
More than 150 people attended the event and listened to the presentations of the experts about active citizenship and participation, discussing experiences from Reggio Emilia, Italy, and Europe.
Our Vice President, Alessandro Perelli participated at the event as a speaker. Speakers included Roberto Montagnani, vice – secretary of ‘Servizio Decentramento, Partecipazione e Processi Deliberativi’ of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Alfonso Corradini, Responsible of Officina Educativa, Anne-Mette Agemark, urban planning of Vejle municipality, Paula Raužan, from the Local Democracy Agency Sisak, and Rodolfo Lewanski, Professor at the University of Bologna and expert about participatory processes. The morning session was concluded with a speech by Professor Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, from University of California.
The event continued with the activities of the partners, who were divided into working groups to discuss about good practices to foster participation, exchanging ideas, and imagining future actions.
