"Think Globally, Act Locally!" – Spreading the project around Croatia

In 2006 GONG implemented the project "Think Globally, Act Locally!" in the town of Rijeka. The goal of the project is to give young people the opportunity to develop skills necessary for active participation in the decision making process at local level. It also aims at changing the negative attitude that young people have about politics in general, providing them the opportunity to take responsibility for implementation and financing of agreed measures at the local level. The central event of the project is the Action Day which takes place in the Town facilities.

The project was immediately recognized by the local government in Rijeka as a worthy initiative that brings advantage both to the students and local officials, but also to the entire local community. Therefore, the Town of Rijeka made an agreement with GONG to support the project implementation in the coming years. The project was implemented in Rijeka in 2007 and is going to be implemented in autumn of this year again.

This year, however, on April 15, the project was implemented for the first time outside Rijeka, in the town of Pazin. 49 students from Juraj Dobrila High School from Pazin were divided in 5 working groups that were developing the project proposals on the topic "Creative Spare Time". Each group of students was provided with help and support from the "group coordinators" – activists or members of the Council of Youth from Pazin. There was also a sixth group – the journalists, who were diligently making notes about all of the activities of other groups and was developing a newspaper on the Pazin Action Day.
After the students developed and handed over their project proposals, they started preparing presentations of their projects for the debate in the ad hoc formed Council of Youth. On the session of the Council of Youth students presenting group projects needed to convince their colleagues that it is exactly the project of their group that is the best and whose implementation deserves to be financed by the Town of Pazin. After the excellent debate and two rounds of voting in the Council, no single project won the necessary majority of votes so the students were given a short break during which they needed to find a way of achieving the majority in the Council. The result of the negotiations and lobbying among groups was the formation of a coalition within the Council of Youth that supported the project of the reconstruction of the bus stop in Pazin.

Students stayed inside the big Assembly Hall of the town of Pazin after the official end of the Action Day to develop the new, joint plan of activities, that is the realization of the winning project enriched with the ideas and activities from projects of other groups. The students are at this point working together to implement the project, together with the town of Pazin, the "Mali veliki covjek" association from Pazin and GONG Regional Office from Rijeka.
Sandra Pernar, GONG, Croatia