ADVOCACY ACTIONS

Our advocacy efforts ranged from the European Neighbourhood Policy, to SDGs, to migration and development. What the LADDER initiatives have in common is the promotion of the role of local governments and civil society organizations when it comes to policy making & action taking at local, national and international level, as well as bridging the gap between citizens and politics, by engaging and advocating in a participatory manner. Read our advocacy documents:

• The New European Neighbourhood Policy needs greater recognition of local and regional governments
• Letter to Commissioner Timmermans for the SDGs
• Migration: root causes & migrants’ civic participation in hosting communities
• Pursuing the values of the EYD2015 & promoting decentralized cooperation as a tool for development

Many other Advocacy Actions were implemented throughout the year by the different geographical and thematic paths!

48 NATIONAL AND LOCAL TRAININGS

Continuing the actions started in 2015, LADDER’s consortium organized 11 national trainings and 37 local trainings in 10 countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Poland, and Slovakia. The trainings brought together more than 2000 people. Trainings were focused on development education, empowerment of local authorities and civil society organizations, raising awareness and engaging citizens in global issues, improving methods of non-formal education.

4 SPECIAL INITIATIVES

The “special initiatives” are events organized by the coordinators of the Thematic and Geographical Paths, in order to raise questions, encourage debate and come with recommendations on the topics addressed under the Paths. Check the 2016 ones here:

• EYD2015 & Follow up Path: Capitalization of the European Year for Development
• Citizens' Participation for Development Path: Citizen Participation University
• MED Path: Local Democracy in the two shores of the Mediterranean
• Environmental & Sustainable Development Path: Working towards sustainable development - Civil Society, Local Actors and EU Strategies

MORE THAN 20 GRASS-ROOT ACTIONS FINANCED - EMPOWERING CITIZENS IN CONTRIBUTING TO DEVELOPMENT

The projects financed through the re-granting scheme of LADDER focused on local actions that can lead to specific results, standing as examples and inspiration for citizens, CSOs and LAs. The aim is to generate constructive and result-oriented activities within their often-limited resources. The selected winning projects came from Spain, Estonia, the Netherlands, Romania, Germany, Croatia, Latvia, Denmark, Italy, Slovakia and Bulgaria. Other projects will be announced early 2017 in Malta, Ireland, Poland and Greece.

SLOGAN COMPETITION

The Slogan Competition, initiated in the second part of 2015, was finalized in 2016, after a careful selection of 34 winning slogans out of 773 proposals received from children and youngsters from all over Europe.
The best 5 slogans were awarded with an iPad, in order to keep fostering the communication skills of the talented participants:

• Video: ”Tolerance – Don’t let your eyes cover your heart with judgement” submitted by Jelena Buden, Dalija Poustecki, Ena Andel, Anamarija Zulicek (Croatia)
• Drawing: “Different religions, languages, skin colours; but we all belong to one human journey. Together we achieve more!” submitted by Andrija Aracic (Croatia)
• Slogan: “Don’t put your feet up, Help stop the heat up.” submitted by Kaitlin Doherty (Ireland)
• Drawing: "We want a world like a painter’s palette, a set of colors" submitted by Valentina di Foggia (Italy)
• Drawing: "Feel free to improve our world!!!" submitted by Patricia Mancos (Romania)

THEATRE PLAY

“In a better world” is the theatre play directed by Francesco Zarzana, President of Progettarte and member of ALDA’s Governing Board. Through music and acting, the story of a woman who managed to cross the sea and reach the shore is being told - a message of hope, despite the sufferance of losing everything, including her soul mate. The sea, a resource that need to be protected, that always had a positive value in our imagination, becomes the grave of all those desperate lives trying to escape from situations which are consuming their dignity as human beings. The play was already acted in Paris (France) and Modena (Italy) in 2016, and many other cities will host it within LADDER activities.

RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT ON DEAR

This year, the task force on research developed several useful resources related to DEAR: key concepts, relevant stakeholders, ways to turn the local authority more sustainable, and ways on how to change the individual and collective footprint. You can find them all here.

In addition to the DEAR database created, in 2016 the results of the survey aimed at collecting opinion regarding DEAR which were implemented at EU level trainings were released. In early 2017, the results collected during the national and local trainings will be also published.