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NGOs in Poland strengthen democracy
For schoolchildren in Poland, the long and winding Vistula River is much more than a waterway. It is a treasured friend with whom they hope to share a vibrant future.
 Polish children explore and protect the Vistula River and the critters that live within it. |
Youngsters from almost 200 towns and villages located along the river participate in the Vistula Guardians program. They monitor the river’s water quality, pick up litter from the banks, educate others about the eco-tourism potential of the river, and provide pep talks to community leaders about protecting and restoring their nation’s largest river.
The students’ efforts are examples of democracy in action and also illustrate that civic participation — by people of all ages — is a vital ingredient for creating a healthy environment for Poland’s citizens and its wildlife, said Beata Szykula of the Eco-Initiative Association in Kwidzyn, a town in northern Poland.
She is coordinator of a three-year joint river conservation/education project with WWF-Poland called “The Vistula — clean, safe and beautiful.”
“I get a lot of satisfaction when I meet with student guards and see them happy to be doing something good for the Vistula River and for places situated along the river. They work together and make adults aware of the advantages that the Vistula can offer society and also the dangers our local society faces if we do not care for the river.”
Eco-Initiative is a member of the Local Activity Support Center-CAL Association, a national network in Poland of 150 organizations and institutions whose staff members and volunteers are taught innovative ways to strengthen communities by involving citizens and tapping local resources.
CAL (Centrum Aktywnosci Lokalnej in Polish) was different from many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that were established after the collapse of communism in Central/Eastern Europe. Routinely, NGOs created new groups to help carry out their missions because they considered the traditional agencies and institutions — such as schools, cultural centers and local governmental units — either resistant to change, too bureaucratic, or nostalgic for their communist past.
“Our institution’s goal was to mobilize local communities. At first, we thought about developing new organizations, but then we said, ‘Why establish new organizations if there are already resources within the community?’” said Pawel Jordan, CAL’s co-founder.
“CAL uses existing institutions, but we help them change from serving as institutions of the state to serving as true community organizations that make a difference in individuals’ lives.”
Jordan is recognized internationally as a “social entrepreneur” because of his vast work in building civil society in Poland and elsewhere in the region.
CAL, a Mott Foundation grantee, has received support totaling $300,000 since it became an independent organization in 2000. But CAL’s work actually began in 1997 as a project of three organizations, two of which Jordan established in Warsaw: BORIS Association-Support Office for the Movement of Social Initiatives, and SPLOT Nongovernmental Organizations Support Network. BORIS has received $684,200 in Mott support since 1995 while SPLOT has received $355,000 since 2003.
CAL specializes in the field of “social animation,” which uses trained people to inspire and empower others to action. The program builds on the belief that everyone has something to contribute to their community.
While the Western connotation of “animation” refers to cartoons or movies, Jordan said, in Poland the term is associated with the French tradition and refers to a process for social change. Animators come from all walks of life and range in age from young adults in their early 20s to people in their 50s. These enthusiastic practitioners serve as mobilizers and moderators who empower Polish residents to improve their communities.
For Jordan, the key concept of social animation is ensuring that leaders and volunteers are people from within the community so they can determine their own agenda for change instead of having outsiders coming in and trying to impose their ideas.
Since Poland’s move toward democracy in the mid-1980s, the country’s business sector has advanced substantially but its civil society sector has not kept pace, Jordan said.
“If Poland’s citizens keep moving the way we are, we will be a consumption society and leave our values behind. That’s not good,” he said.
“At CAL, we are grounded in the philosophical value of local community development and democracy. We want to have the solidarity of being good to ourselves and good to other people. We want to work for the public benefit by using community approaches and community spirit.”
CAL regularly forms partnerships with social welfare centers because almost every Polish community has one. While these centers are local government entities, Jordan proudly proclaims that they operate “with the spirit of NGOs” because they are flexible instead of bureaucratic.
A few staff members from each center are trained by CAL specialists in community development methods so they can become social animators, and they, in turn, share what they have learned with co-workers, such as how to be responsive to residents’ needs instead of simply doling out public money. They also learn the importance of teaching people how to help themselves, instead of becoming dependent upon the state.
One example of a center that is thriving because of its partnership with is the Municipal Social Welfare Centre in Gdynia. It was established by the Gdynia City Council in 1990 as a one-stop coordinating center to address local social services needs, and today it serves as the community nerve center.
Local police, medical and mental health staff, educators, lawyers, social service workers, and nonprofit groups pull together to tackle problems as a team. They pool their expertise and resources to meet the needs of people in a variety of circumstances, such as homeless, elderly, mentally ill, physically disabled or lacking child care.
In addition to teaching Gdynia’s paid staff, CAL also trained local volunteers, said Bozena Nowakowska, vice director of the Gdynia center.
“CAL is known for the high-quality results it gets,” she said.
“By having our institutions in the CAL network, we are perceived as professionals who have the skills for effective action in the local community. Being associated with CAL gives us access to the newest information about working methods that we can apply to the local community. We can avoid some mistakes and generate new ideas on how to effectively support people.”
Nowakowska praised CAL’s trainers for sharing the organization’s tried-and-true method of community development with Gdynia residents, which includes researching a community’s most pressing social needs and identifying its resources to meet those needs.
“Having such insight from CAL allowed us to offer services appropriate to the social needs in specific areas,” she said.
“Because we did that, the citizen response has been big. The support offered by the center in Gdynia has been well-received because it serves the needs in people’s everyday lives.”
Providing services to network members is only one of CAL’s four main programs. It also operates the School for Social Animators (SAS), a professional training program that has graduated more than three dozen people from Poland in the past three years. SAS also boasts about a dozen Ukrainian graduates who are spreading CAL’s local development method throughout their post-communist country.
CAL’s third major program is the Institute of Education and Local Activity, which trains local leaders and volunteers to see their community as a single unit with a variety of needs instead of viewing it through the lens of distinct fields such as health, environment or education.
The Citizen Reporter newspaper, an Internet-based media project, is CAL’s fourth project. The electronic service provides updated news about issues that directly affect citizens and offers suggestions about ways they can make positive changes in their communities.
CAL is recognized as successful for several reasons, including its ability to link with organizations and institutions in eight of Poland’s 16 provinces in barely five years and impact the lives of many of the nation’s 38.6 million residents. In addition, its approach to community development continues to be adopted by NGOs and government agencies in Poland and neighboring countries.
But CAL is probably most recognized for its success in connecting people with their communities in meaningful ways, which is an aspect of Jordan’s work that gives him great satisfaction.
“At CAL, we strongly believe in the value of partnership and empowering people so they actively create the lives they want for themselves,” he said.
“We want to see people speak up because every voice is important and every voice is needed. We are creating a change in Poland. It’s coming slowly but change is coming.”