LocationsEmpowering the community center in the local community Dubravica
January 16, 2024
With the aim of strengthening community centers that greatly contribute to improving the lives of the population in local communities, the LC project announced a public call aimed at non-governmental organizations and associations. Out of 34 non-governmental organizations that applied, funds were awarded to 8, including the Agency for Local Democracy Zavidovići among others. The Local Community Dubravica has 1800 residents and is one of the larger local communities in the city of Zavidovići, with the Community Center being a gathering place for various generations of the population.
The number of direct beneficiaries of this center is 190, with the structure as follows: women (40), men (50), youth (40), children (60), and all other residents of this local community. The older population uses the space for meetings and discussing certain problems in the local community, as well as commemorating important dates.
The younger population uses the center for leisure activities with children's furniture, conducting sports activities, and using the computer available at the center for school needs or entertainment. The LC Dubravica Community Center is the source of numerous volunteer actions, such as cleaning roads or channels around the streets, which are regular activities of the LC Dubravica residents. However, the potential for using this community center is much greater than the current state, so the citizens of this local community, with the support of the Agency for Local Democracy Zavidovići (ALD), proposed the local project "Empowering the community center in LC Dubravica." The Agency for Local Democracy Zavidovići (ALD) promotes principles of democracy, respect for human rights, social cohesion, and sustainable development in cooperation with local institutions and European partners. Slađan Ilić, a representative of the Agency, stated on this occasion:
Slađan Ilić
Through our activities, we create and introduce a series of different educational workshops and lectures that will serve to acquire new knowledge on various topics and for different population categories. For the youngest, we organize Igrobus as activities for animation and learning through play. Young people can consider the center their place where they can socialize, spend free time, and gain new knowledge and skills that they can use in everyday life. We have organized educational lectures on agriculture for women on the topic of farming, and an agronomist follows the users in the field after the lectures and provides them with practical advice. Our intention is to encourage different population categories to use the community center by selecting educational lectures, so we organize advisory lectures concerning the health of both women and men. By organizing cultural and sports events in the community center space, we want to enable inclusion and connection with residents from other areas of the city to enrich the content in the community center in the future.Slađan Ilić
To continue the sustainability and continuity of the achieved results, Slađan Ilić notes that sustainability is reflected in the increased number of activities for all categories of users of the Community Center, which will become a gathering place for residents. Given that basic project writing training will be organized for the users of the Community Center, he believes that the engagement of the local community residents will increase in terms of designing new activities and writing project proposals to various donors, adding:
“In implementing the project, we have very good cooperation with the City of Zavidovići, which supported the implementation of this project. In our case, we encountered the problem of a lack of funds for the reconstruction of the roof on the community center building because the value of the necessary work was higher than originally planned, but the mayor and his associates helped us cover the difference in funds that we lacked to do all the necessary work. The LC project significantly contributes to strengthening local communities, participation, and inclusion of citizens in local development processes.”
Mirsad Jašarević
“The biggest change is that now the community center is used by young people, and they now have a place to gather and have fun. Also, the Local Community Council uses the community center space for its needs, thereby increasing the number of Council meetings. In the end, there has been a change in the behavior of the population in that the number of active members of the Local Community is increasing day by day.”Mirsad Jašarević, president of the Local Community Dubravica
Jašarević took this opportunity to emphasize the excellent cooperation with the Agency for Local Democracy Zavidovići, which, he says, completes tasks on time, and they are approachable and flexible in their work.
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