GONG celebrated the first ten years of work with ‘Closed Door Day’

On Friday 13 April 2007 it was exactly 10 years since the first attempt was made by GONG to monitor elections. It was unsuccessful, because the Republican Election Commission forbade GONG activists to be present as observers at polling stations. It is tradition now that GONG celebrates that day as its anniversary.

During the last ten years GONG has become best-known for and mostly recognized because of its activities regarding elections. Without going into detail about all the activities and achieved results, some of the most important ones should be emphasized. During these ten years more then 20,000 citizens actively joined GONG and participated in election monitoring activities. In 2000 GONG organised ‘public pressure’ that resulted in the Croatian Parliament opening its gallery for citizens to attend its sessions for the first time. Soon after that GONG also started organising tours to the Parliament for citizens and initiated the “Internship programme”, in which students can volunteer for MPs. Through its advocacy activities GONG has contributed to qualitative amendments and adoption of more than 50 different laws. Around 130,000 high school graduates participated in “I Vote for the First Time” workshops and over 1,000 citizens and activists took part in other kinds of workshops and educational programmes. GONG organized almost 900 “Citizens’ Hours”, which are meetings between citizens and their elected representatives in all the different counties of Croatia. Over these ten years GONG has produced and distributed hundreds of thousands brochures, booklets, publications and leaflets to citizens. On top of this many researches were conducted, analyses made and comments written by GONG, and they were all made public. GONG conducted educational campaigns regarding elections, the right to have access of information and volunteerism, which included video and audio clips that were broadcasted mostly for free on national and local TV and radio stations. With these projects GONG and the media jointly influenced the building of political culture in Croatia. GONG offices were always open to everyone and GONG helped thousands of citizens, election candidates, parties and institutions who made contact asking for help.

Unfortunately, GONG has no financial means at the moment to mark this important anniversary, although it is a wish of its employees to mark it with a gathering of all former and current employees, associates, and the most active volunteers and with some appropriate exhibitions. Therefore, we are asking the public to help GONG with some financial contributions through our website, which should very soon get a new design and as such provide more interesting information and be more interactive.

What is even more important at this moment is that GONG has no financial means for the educational campaign for the upcoming parliamentary elections, nor for the activities of monitoring the election. It is also quite questionable whether we will receive funds from foreign donators who have so far supported our activities. Most of GONG donators have changed their focus to other countries, believing that Croatia is a developed democratic state that can recognize and support its citizens’ needs and public interest. Therefore, GONG has asked for help from the Croatian Government in co-financing the educational campaign for the election. However, we did not receive an answer so far.

All of GONG’s reports, publications, activities, workshops and services were given at disposal to the general public during all of its 10 years.

However, the future of GONG and similar organizations in Croatia is unknown. It is getting harder and harder to find sources for financing and planning of activities. In order to stress this problem, GONG has decided to celebrate its 10 years of working and actively involving the citizens with a symbolical “Closed Door Day”.

Our doors, phones and e-mails were open to all citizens, media, political parties, state institutions and academia during those 10 years and we hope they will remain open long after 13 April 2007.

We kindly ask all citizens, institutions, media, profit organizations and everyone who has a good will and appreciates the efforts and results of GONG’s work, to help us with their donations. This is the only way that we can implement all the activities we have planned for the parliamentary election, together with all other activities that contribute to GONG’s mission and vision.

For information on how to donate to us, please, visit our website: www.gong.hr.

Thank you!

Sandra Pernar, GONG, Croatia