1.1. International cartoon Row in Denmark

Article written by the City of Aarhus as CITIZ@MOVE partner working in Integration of Ethnic Minorities

The cartoon row in Denmark internationalized the multicultural multiethnic debate in Denmark and in the west. An issue journalists and artists considered a satire become international crises for Denmark. It is important to underline that the Danish people are tolerant when it comes to receiving and integrating ethnic minorities. The country has extended legal, economic and political rights for all its citizens and inhabitants. So far ethnic minorities in Denmark, particularly the large Muslim community remained calm in expressing their views in a democratic constructive way. Though creating international tension, the cartoon row did not had major influence in our daily working activities of empowering socially and economically deprived communities in urban neighborhoods. For us the key words are respect and inclusion. Diversity and mutual respect characterizes our work. That is what we have been doing in the past years, and that is what we intend to continue doing so.

1.2. First CTWG on Citizen Participation

The first meeting of the CTWG on the role of inhabitants in urban public management took place in Malmø the 19th 20th January 2006.

The first day was focused on presentations made by experts and networks concerning the subject. The second day, two working groups about citizens and administrations motivations and barriers regarding “Social Exclusion” were organised.

Concerning the citizens, the following schema was discussed:

Schema – How citizens foresee ethnic minorities participation and organisation

Regarding the administrations a list of motivations and barriers were defined and solutions were proposed. A full report will be sent as soon as it will be received.

The next CTWG will be organised in Valencia the 9th and 10th June 2006 about tools and methods of participation, with various forms of interaction and communication.

Last News: A new CITIZ@MOVE budgetary reprogrammation has been undertaken taking into consideration the current state of expenses.

2.1. MAIN SEMINARS AND EVENTS CELEBRATED UP TO DATE

10th - 13th June 2004	First General Assembly - Aarhus.
11th - 13th November 2004	Second working Group – WG 2 – Turin
11th - 14th November 2004	Second working group seminar – WG 3 – Graz
3rd- 5th March 2005	Second working group seminar – WG 1 – London
18th – 19th March 2005	Third working group seminar – WG 2 – Charleroi
26th – 29th May 2005	Second General Assembly Charleroi
26th September 2005	Project Leaders meeting in Paris
27th September 2005	Project Leaders Certification bodies meeting in Paris
28th September 2005	CITIZ@MOVE Expert's meeting in Belgium to prepare the capitalisation work with the attendance of Macarena Ybarra as CITIZ@MOVE coordinator.
13th - 15th October 2005	Fifth working group seminar - WG 2 - Valenciennes.
27th – 30th October 2005	Forth working group seminar - WG 3 - Cosenza.
14th – 15th November 2005	Urbact Cities Conference - Liverpool.
15th December 2005	Meeting between the General Coordinator and the General expert to discuss about the final CITIZ@MOVE product format - Louvain.
19th December 2005	Charleroi Working Group technical meeting - Brussels.
12th January 2005	Charleroi working group will meet with Macarena Ybarra as General coordinator to foresee the new reprogramation
20th – 21st January 2006	CTWG on the role of inhabitants in urban public management will focus on the topic: “Citizen Participation and Social Exclusion”. Malmø
25TH January 2006	AARHUS LOCALWORKSHOP. 8th local workshop . Gudrunsvej 3a, 8220 Brabrand.
2nd– 4th February 2006	Charleroi Working group seminar - Brussels
9th February 2006	Final deadline to submit the project reprogramation.

2.2. WORKING GROUP 1

A. Aarhus Local workshop and Urbact dessimination

Aarhus local workshop will in the coming months focus more on dissemination activities related the work and output of the theme of ethnic empowerment and inclusion.
On Wednesday the 25th of January Aarhus local workshop held its 8th meeting. About 25 representatives from the authorities, civil society and ordinary citizens participated in the meeting which took place Globus1. Global1 is a large neighbourhood activity centre co-financed by Aarhus Urban programme II and numerous other institutions. The agenda of the day was empowerment of women with ethnic minority background, the contribution to the final product of CITIZ@MOVE and the local workshop participation in a neighbourhood engagement event that will be held on the 11th of March in urban neighbourhood in Aarhus.

B. Debate on building an activity House for Women

The local workshop invited members of an initiative group that is trying to build a house for women. The aim is to empower and include women in the activities that are taking place in the neighbourhood. Maria Arianfar and leading members of the group discussed the woekshop with their ambitions and why it is important to get a particular space for women. Some of the men participating in the workshop were curious to know why should women have a particular space. The answer was that many women are isolated and are not able to join. Therefore we need to attract and help these women. Maria said that our experiences show that when women are together in a women environment they are open to discuss and contribute. The aim of the project is not exclude men but to give women and opportunity so they better participate and contribute to the social and civic aspects of the community.
In conclusion the workshop debated on the way that Aarhus local workshop and WG1 should contribute to the final products of the network CITIZ@MOVE. There was an agreement that WG1 should introduce concrete results on the theme of empowering and including ethnic minorities. The workshop also dealt with the plan on contributing to major arrangement that urban programme will held on the 11th of March. About 400 people from various institutions and projects will come together to discuss about the future plans of the neighbourhood.
More about the workshop activities and about Aarhus urban programme, visit: www.urbanbydel.dk

2.3. WORKING GROUP 2

Charleroi Working group met on 2nd - 3rd and 4th February in Brussels.

Thursday: The Public Centre for Social Action of Brussels hosted the meeting and Mr Jean-Marie Armand, Vice-President, was the first to welcome the participants.

This institution has been presented by Mrs Germinal, Mrs Magnée and Mrs Van Rymenant.

The city was presented by Mr Thierry Hendrickx in its different aspects (housing, population, unemployment, incomes, …).

Then Mrs Cocozza, leader of the project ‘les cahiers, le dire pour agir” presented the results and the contents of the writing experience with residents from Laeken.

Friday: The first step of the day was the “House of creation in Laeken” (a part of the Brussels Centre), a project born with the participation of the institutions, associations and residents of the neighbourhoods. Mr Jacques Hanon, President of the PICOL and resident in Laeken explained the context and the urban revitalization actions. Then, the group began a long visit among the streets and the social projects (“amis sans frontière”, “école de devoirs”, commercial center management, … and several projects conducted with participative citizen and volunteers). The lunch was served in a social restaurant of the Social Centre for Public Action. A cultural event ended the program.

Saturday: a meeting in the social centre took place to:

- Explain the Global plan for Laeken revitalization
- Discuss about the Agenda 21
- Work on the evolution of the working group on the basis of the expert’s note (B. Francq) : synthesis, perspective, ending seminar.

The next newsletter will propose a synthesis of the content on the debates.

Charleroi working group participants in from of the ‘House of the Creation” In Laeken (Brussels)

2.4. WORKING GROUP 3

The Diagnosis undertaken in Graz was presented and we are pleased to underline the main conclusions:

A. Main aspect concerning New technologies

To find a common level for discussion the moderation had first to inform about the existing possibilities, technical expressions and instruments and give explanations regarding the difference between information, communication and participation. Using these three categories as a framework, the participants were confronted with the general question: How can citizens get involved into the realisation of projects and what instruments may be used?

The ideas and proposals were noted on the prepared poster. In a second step the participants should think about how the mentioned proposals and instruments can be used in the best way in the different fields of information, communication and participation. At the end of this process it turned out, that there is still a great preference towards personal contacts.

They are suspicious against IT voting and the registration of counts, although all members of the workshop were contacted without any exception via e-mail and nearly all of them are internet users, it is not yet common to exchange opinions about public affairs

New Information Technologies are regarded as to be really helpful and well usable in the field of information. The city administration informed the participants about the existing IT tools, which are already offered by the city, as they are: the very big homepage, good offers for downloads (forms etc.), various information hotlines, e-governance to get in contact with the city’s departments, electronic newsgroups etc., but also the IT based “Stadtteilmonitoring”, which is the interactive information tool for Graz-West provided by Urban_link Graz-West.

B. Conclusions:

The participants took the workshop really seriously as a period of intensive work; at the end they had the impression to have done a good and important job. As a main result of this they are expecting that the results of their work will be taken as a real outline of what has to be done for Graz-West within the mid term future.

Some of the proposed activities like the elaboration of an integrated traffic concept or the development of the brewery’s area became projects in progress in the mean time; some others are going to be prepared for a start. Keeping in mind one of the principle messages of the workshop and most important output from the CITIZ@MOVE diagnosis and future scenario workshop about “New Information Technology and Active Citizenship”, it will be necessary not only to realise good projects for this part of the city but also to discuss them with citizens, to use the various means of communication and information, to open facilities for participation and to try to convince people that the future development of the city is in their own hand.

Diagnosis undertaken in Graz	Participative methodology to seek citizens opinion

2.5. FINAL CITI@MOVE PRODUCT

The CD proposed is the following one:

Principal Menu:

-Introduction: Introduction to the working groups with the explanation of the programme objectives .
- Book in chapters made by Bernard Decleve. Documents will be named and referenced and clicking on the document the user will be able to have it completely as all project documents will be in the next section.

· Introduction to the methodology used in the book
· Chapter 1: List of good practices of the three WG
· Chapter 2: Typology of good practices
· Chapter 3: Analysis of participation
· Conclusions/recommendations

- Documents

· CITIZ@MOVE Documents: Documents listed by working groups.
· References to the meetings
· Website (urbact network)
· Website (ours)

- Audiovisiual Material: Photographies and Other Audiovisual elements
- Credits and References
- Aid
- Map of navigation Cd-Rom
- Data of Performance
- Exit (flash animation of the entry and credits)

- Aalborg as CITIZ@MOVE partner will organize a practical course in their city where you can see, try and debate different ways to work with integration and citizens participation under the theme: Citizens participation and integration. Words are not enough, action is needed!. Aalborg wants to share with CITIZ@MOVE partners and other cities interested why they have success ! (See Point 4 and 6 for more information)

- WEB PAGE: Aarhus as web masters of the CITIZ@MOVE project requires from CITIZ@MOVE partners the information requested by the project coordinator. You can have direct access to the project web page http://www.urbact.org/citizmove.

4.1.CITIZ@MOVE PARTNER INVITATION

19TH – 24TH June 2006

Practical course “Citizens participation and integration. Words are not enough, action is needed!”. Aalborg (Denmark) . (See full invitation in point 6 – text)

4.2. MAIN COMING EVENTS

24th February 2006

Lead Partner Meeting- Paris (France)

11th – 14th May 2006

Seville working group meeting – West Athens (Greece) .

9th – 10th June 2006

CTWG about tools and methods of participation, with various forms of interaction and communication – Valencia (Spain).

4.3. OTHER CONFERENCES OR MEETING

15th – 17th February 2006

“Innovation and freedon” II Internacional Conference of free Software – Malaga ( Spain)

30th – 31st March 2006

URBAN Action Congress”. The URBAN Action congress will present and discuss the concrete preparations and plans for the URBAN mainstreaming and the urban dimension within different EU Member States. Graz undMaribor (Austria) (See full invitation in point 6 – text)

3rd -5th May 2006

European Conference on Urban Future 2.0. - Governance and Partnership - Stockholm (Sweden) . (See full invitation in point 6 – text)

4th – 8th September 2006

Call for papers EGO V06 Fourth EGOV conference - The EGOV Conference Series intends to assess the state of the art in eGovernment and eGovernance and to provide guidance for research and development in this fast-moving field. The annual conferences bring together leading researchers and professionals from all over the globe and from many disciplines. Krakow (Poland)

URBACT

http://www.urbact.org/citizmove

AMSTERDAM MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER

http://www.networkcultures.org/

CIBERSOCIEDAD

http://www.cibersociedad.net/

E-LEARNING EUROPE

http://www.elearningeuropa.info/

- Aalborg Invitation to a practical course concerning the theme - Citizens participation and integration. [PDF]

- Invitation to the URBAN Action Congress. In Graz undMaribor – [PDF]

- Invitation to Urban Futures 2.0 Final - Governance and Partnership - Stockholm – [PDF]

For subscription, and for any information you may require about the project, please send a mail to Macarena Ybarra to the following address: edpbruselas@skynet.be

We may introduce here NOTES, OBSERVATIONS And RELIABLE MAILS THAT PEOPLE SEND TO THE ACCOUNT.

Publisher

Francisco Javier PANDO SASTRE
Town planning Department,
Seville city council
fjps@urbanismo-sevilla.org

Sonja MIKKELSEN
The URBAN II secretariat
Programme Manager
sm@urban.aarhus.dk

Eric DOSIMONT
Centre Public d’Action Sociale de Charleroi
cpas.huysmanschantal@skynet.be

Coordinator

Macarena YBARRA
EDP
edpbruselas@skynet.be

 

Secretariat

Beatriz SALAS
Delegation of Public Participation
Seville City Council
jefser.pciudadana@sevilla.org

Francisco SIERRA CABALLERO
Latin American Centre of Digital Communication
Journalism Department I
University of Seville
fsierra@us.es