The Sustainable Return of Refugees and Displaced Person Civil Society Project (SRRDP-CS) is an integral part of the European Union CARDS 2001 national project, worth 23,3 million € in total.

The aim of the project is to provide support to the rehabilitation of the social structure in four chosen EUPOP county districts (European Union - Reconstruction for Return Project): Dvor, Glina, Knin and Gracac.

Donor: European Union

The project will be implemented by three partner organizations:
CARE INTERNATIONAL www.carecro.org, as the main implementing partner,
GONG www.gong.hr
ZaMirNET www.zamirnet.hr

All three-partner organizations are experienced in organization development and strengthening programs, democratization and return of refugees.

Groups targeted by the project:
CARE, GONG and ZaMirNET will be working with various members and groups in the community:
- Local authorities (county authorities, local committees);
- Local non-governmental organizations;
- Local informal groups and civic initiatives

Project activities:
The SRRDP-CS project will be conducted in two main program components:
- Strengthening of efficiency and development of organizations of the local authorities and civil society;
- Strengthening of public participation and raising the level of information.

The project will offer the following activities to the chosen county districts and groups:

1. Strengthening and development of civil society organizations
Identification and evaluation of civil society organizations;
Plan and implementation of the strategy of organization strengthening and development;
Providing training, information and ICT resources to civil sector organizations.

2. Strengthening of local authority capacities

3. Strengthening of capacities and improvement of the work of Local Committees
Community mobilization;
Community action planning.

4. Connecting and exchange among the participants of civil society (locally, regionally and internationally)

5. Acquisition of ICT technology and training of local authorities and civil society organizations
Basic computer and ICT training;
Training in hardware and software support;
Acquisition of computer equipment, and access to the equipment for state and local authorities;
Training in creation and web portal maintenance;
Providing technical support to county offices and non-governmental organizations in their space;
Consulting and public debates on strategic use of the Internet.

6. Citizens hours
Educational citizens hours;
Citizen's hours with selected representatives of the local authorities and Local Committees.

7. Enable education / training for civil society organizations, related to the relevant problems of the local community

8. Create an info portal on county level - County web pages

9. Form on-line Citizen's forums for the exchange of information
Advertising of civil society activities with the aim of stimulating public participation

10. Enable public access to selected representatives of the local authorities

About the project partners:

ZaMirNET is a citizen's organization that uses information and communication technologies for distributing and creating information relevant for the development of the civil society in Croatia and its surroundings.
The basic principles of our work are empowerment, active acceptance of diversities, solidarity and co-operation with groups and individuals dedicated to build a culture of peace and non-violence.

ZaMirNET goals:
- Enabling of cooperation between Croatian and regional NGOs by putting technical means at their disposal and applying new technologies (ICT)
- Advocating improvement and protection of human rights
- Stimulating the development of democracy
- Active stimulation of changes in society in accordance with nonviolence values
- Ensuring the inclusion of all deprived and marginalized groups in the society
- Promotion of philanthropy and volunteerism

On this project ZaMirNET is in charge of informatization and education of representatives of local authorities and civil initiatives through the acquisition of basic computer equipment, ICT education and technical support in all of the four locations in the mentioned project.
The local authorities staff and civil initiatives representatives will have the opportunity to participate in the following activities:

- ICT workshops will cover the field of using Windows, Word, Excel and Internet skills.
- The goal of the workshop on computer using and maintenance is to enable local authorities staff to maintain the equipment received through the program. Successful candidates will receive CompTIA A+ certificate recognized by IBM, HP, Apple, and others, upon completion of the workshop.
- Strengthening local authorities offices and civil initiatives capacities by donating computer equipment that will also be used for the maintenance of the community web portal.
- The creation and maintenance of the web portal workshop will train per one representative of the local authorities and civil initiatives from each of the four communities.
- Technical field support for the local authorities and civil initiatives will be at least once a month or by agreed appointment, after the completion of the basic computer courses.
- Consultations and public presentations on the strategic use of Internet will be organized in order to promote the use of Internet for the development of the local community. Two presentations are planned each community.
- The workshops for Local Committees will be conducted through educational strengthening and capacity building workshops in order for the Local Committees to get involved as effectively as possible in solving the problems in their local communities.
- Creating an action plan for Local Committees in the community will enable the acquiring of skills and techniques for planning work in the community.

GONG
GONG is a non-governmental and non-party citizen's organization founded in 1997 with the aim of encouraging citizens to more actively participate in political processes. GONG conducts non-party overseeing of the electoral process, educates citizens about their rights and duties, stimulates two-way communication between citizens and their elected representatives, intercedes for transparency of the work of all public services, conducts public advocacy campaigns and helps the self-organizing of citizens.

The Citizen's hour
The "Citizen's hour" is a meeting of citizens and elected representatives from the local and national levels, where citizens ask various questions, praise, criticize, but also suggest possible solutions to current problems.
Since fall 2000, Citizen's hours have been organized throughout Croatia in the form of public meetings and radio shows, and, depending on the interest and topic, together with the elected representatives (members of parliament, county prefects, mayors, heads, councilors). We also invite representatives of the Government, independent experts, and all those who can answer numerous questions, to the meetings with citizens.

The open parliament
- Tour of the parliament for the citizens:
Tours of the parliament have started as a result of a GONG initiative, and are organized as cooperation between GONG (where people register) and the parliament (tour guiding and lecture).
High schools are especially interested in tours of the parliament, and for them we organize arrival, meeting and conversation with members of parliament from their electoral unit.
- Citizen's presence at the parliament sessions:
after the parliamentary elections GONG has asked the parliament to open the gallery for all interested citizens. Since then, all interested citizens can attend sessions of the parliament.
- Introduction to the work of the local electoral bodies
On the model of opening the parliament, the citizens can also attend sessions of local representative bodies (county districts, cities and counties), and GONG provides them support with issuing the license for attending and learning the basic legal regulations.

"Voting for the First Time" workshops
Since 2001 we have been doing interactive workshops in the final grades of secondary schools in the whole Croatia in order to contribute to education and stimulate youth to participate in the political and social life of the Republic of Croatia. Only in 2002 we have carried out 1150 workshops in 280 secondary schools, with more than 30000 participating pre-high-school diploma students. The students and professors are showing great interest for the workshops, and the Ministry of educations and sports has issued recommendations for implementation of the project.

With the help of GONG all citizens can:
- come to the "citizen's hour", ask the guests questions, but also suggest a topic, guests and location of the next Citizen's hour
- visit the parliament on Mondays
- attend sessions of the parliament and local electoral bodies (county assembly and county district and town committees)
- participate in "Voting for the First Time" workshops (students of final grades in secondary schools)
- get advice or answer to their question about the electoral process, electoral bodies or legal regulations
- become an observer for the elections
- become a GONG volunteer!

HOW CAN YOU JOIN OUR ACTIVITIES?
- Call 060 20 20 20
(1,36 kn/min; profit from the calls is for further development of GONG activities)
- E-mail us at gong@gong.hr
- Visit us at www.gong.hr or in the nearest regional office
(Rijeka, Slavonski Brod, Zadar, Zagreb)

CARE INTERNATIONAL

CARE has a rich experience in working with returnees, and in strengthening and developing civil society organizations in the region.
CARE will strive to cooperate with civil society organizations open to all members of the community (returnees, displaced persons), and organizations that advocate democracy, progress and transparency.

CARE will carry out the following field activities:

1. Strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations
§ training proffering (financial transactions, budget creating, writing project proposals for donor organizations and potential donors from the local community), technical resources to civil society organizations;
§ seminars on sustainability of civil society organizations will focus on methods of finding funds for their work from other resources, not only from the international community, and gaining skills how to earn income for the organization through various non-profit business activities.

2. Donation of the computer equipment and training for local authorities and civil society organizations
§ Care will donate two computers to each county district and one to the local authorities or civil society organizations who will enable public access to the equipment (i.e. public library).
§ the computer will be donated as a means of strengthening the sustainability of the organization

3. Strengthening local authorities capacities
§-providing training to local authorities in developing of the open dialog with the citizens;

4. Connecting and exchange between the subjects of civil society (locally, regionally and cross-border)

5. Providing education/training for civil society organizations, in relation to the relevant problems of the community
§ organizing of seminars which tend to rise awareness of the problems of marginalized groups and discriminatory practices, through covering human rights issues, sexual equality, minority rights, conflict resolution and non-violent communication;
§ local community fairs will be organized in all four county districts, where civil and private sector initiatives will be presented, together with local committees and local authorities, as well as cultural manifestations.