Radio Kotor: Through cooperation to more active citizens and sustainable cities

Short article about the workshop ACT4CITY, held in Kotor 13-14 May 2016, is published on the Radio Kotor web site. Read it below.

Centre for Sustainable Spatial Development "Expeditio" from Kotor has organized Regional Workshop "Independent cultural actors for sustainable cities of the Balkans", last Friday and Saturday, in the "Jugooceanija" building. This activity was implemented within the project "Act4City - Work for the city". Project partners are the organizations "Ministry of Space" from Belgrade, "City Creative Network" from Skopje and "Lazareti Art Workshop" from Dubrovnik. Workshop brought together 40 participants from all the countries of the former Yugoslavia, followed by Albania and France. For conclusion we asked sociologist of culture Predrag Cvetičanin.

"I think small gatherings that are trying very hard to awaken citizens to fight for a common good are very important. In part, these common goods in socialism were implied - education, free health care, getting housing... In case of the cities those are parks, public squares, streets, sidewalks. Probably because they did not fight for them but they got them as the most normal thing, people often leave them without a fight", - said Cvetičanin to Radio Kotor. In his view, we are living "in the worst possible combination of two worlds".

"On one side there is the global idea of neoliberalism that everything that is common should be privatized. Maybe it would not be a bad idea if there was a possibility so that the majority could privatize these things. However, the point is that a tremendous minorities are privatizing everything that is in common ownership. The other world is the world of clientelist, that remained of socialism, where the key issue is no longer the money and capital but social capital and who knows whom, party, kinship and country connections. And a third party are citizens that are the least represented. These organizations, gathered at the International Workshop, are attempting to wake up the citizens, the weakest side, because they are a huge sleeping giant. They are individuals who simply take care of theirown problems and do not have the time to see how they all together are robbed "- said Predrag Cvetičanin.

We wish to remind you that, during the workshop, were organized presentations of visiting non-governmental organizations, work in focus groups and a tour of the bay by boat.

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ACT4CITY is funded by Balkan Arts and Culture Fund BAC. BAC is supported by the Swiss Government through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the European Cultural Foundation (EFC).