First Steps in the Community Leadership

Monday, 07 December 2015

Representatives of 12 communities from all over the country were trained how effectively to cooperate with local authorities searching for solutions of their communities problems'. The training was the first stage of the "Active Civic Participation and Leadership Programme" imlemented within the project „Life Changing Challenges", funded by the NGO Programme in Bulgaria under the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area. The aim of the training programme is building up leadership skills for community work and enhancement of knowledge for development and application of local policies with citizens' participation.

The training was held from December 03rd to December 06th, 2015 in Sofia with 24 participants identified by their communities to actively search for solutions of specific local problems with civic approach and participation. During the module, the participants gained knowledge on the basic rights and duties of citizens, the division of power, the structure of local authorities, decentralization and local governance and got to know the mechanisms of public policy development. The second accent was on building basic leadership skills - models of public speaking and convincing communication, team work. The participants faced the challenge of mastering the analysis technique „Tree of problems" - search for causes and create cause-and-effect links in order to get to the foundation of the problems as a first step in the problem solving. The application of that skill was the base of the practical task for each participant for the next module - to analyze the problem of their community they are specifically committed to solving.

The special guests - Mr. Ivan Velkov, Deputy-Chairperson of the Metropolitan Municipal Council and Mr. Rumen Pehlivanov - Mayor of Rudozem Municipality contributed to the emotional spirit of the training sharing their experience in dealing with various challenges in their professional path.

The Programme "Active Civic Participation and Leadership" is developed by the Bulgarian School of Politics "Dimitry Panitza" in partnership with Platform AGORA.

This document is created with the financial support of the NGO Programme in Bulgaria under the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Association "Platform AGORA" and can in no way be taken to reflect the official views of the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area and the Operator of the NGO Programme in Bulgaria.