Another meeting of the Citizens’ City Experience Exchange Network

The representatives of Zabrze attended the Citizens’ City Experience Exchange Network convention held in Tri-city in turn of May and June. The meeting was a platform to exchange experiences and good practices mainly in the scope of participation and effective inclusion of the inhabitants to the active participation in the social life. The main organizer of the convention, the Union of Polish Cities – enabled the representatives of the cities and municipalities benefitting from the Norwegian funds to meet the local government members and the social activists who implement the idea of participation in their everyday work.

On the first day of the convention a meeting was held, among others, on managing and funding the social innovation incubators as well as neighbor homes and clubs organized in the Centrum Dolna Brama, Gdańsk. The participants of the Citizens’ City Experience Exchange Network also visited The Neighbors Home Hospitable Retreat in Orunia. On the second day a meeting with the President of Gdynia, Michał Guć took place in Urban Lab, where discussion topics included, without limitation, the genesis and survival method as well as development of this kind of places, the further questions included the model platform of collaboration with the inhabitants and the method of extending its lifetime after the project will have been finished. The representatives of the Stocznia [Shipyard] Fund told about the Social Innovation Bank and about some proven remedial methods that can be implemented while solving the social problems of cities. The Union of Polish Cities also organized a meeting with the personnel of the Architect’s Bureau of Gdańsk, the stakeholders of the participation processes in the Młode Miasto [Young City] area (former Gdańsk Shipyards) and in Gdańskie Centrum of Contact in Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz.