“Working with people in the field is challenging, but also very inspiring. All our common small victories are an inexhaustible mutual motivation to continue working for our settlements, cities, for our country,” says Anita Šimić, general secretary of the Network of Active Communities, at the beginning of our conversation. This organization, created within the Tuzla Community Foundation program, has been operating as an independent organization since 2014.
Although they still cooperate very closely, the Network of Active Communities has grown into a recognizable organization in the area of Tuzla Canton over the past years, and the support it received through the Local Works program has opened many doors for it. Among other things, the door of the Tuzla City Administration.
“The cooperation of the City of Tuzla with the Network of Active Communities contributes to faster and more efficient identification of needs and solving problems of citizens in the local community. With the Network of Active Communities, the City of Tuzla has established and developed a partnership relationship that enables us to better connect with the citizens. In this way they, together, create an environment for a better life for all of us,” Asja Redžić, assistant to the mayor of Tuzla, Department for Culture, Sports, social protection and youth, said for Local Works.
The aforementioned cooperation was achieved through a project titled Environmental Mobilization, in which five local communities participated, and the education of 20 activists produced leaders in small communities who led environmental actions, supported by the City of Tuzla.
“The Department for communal affairs and work with local communities gave us confidence and a way to open direct communication, so that we could all function as well as possible and cooperate more efficiently. In the future, we hope that we will have such direct cooperation with all 40 local communities in the area of the City of Tuzla, especially because the environmental problems we have are huge, and that two years ago we strategically decided to work with activists on the ground and tackle ecological problems. We want to raise citizens’ awareness of these topics, because as a society we may already be too late to deal with changes concerning our lifestyles, household management, energy saving, waste management, etc. That is why it is very important that things start from us as individuals, so that we can have visible changes in the long term. As an organization, we believe that cooperation with the public sector is very important, and that we can act successfully only if we support each other in terms of the exchange of resources, expertise and capacities”, explains Šimić.
Citizens should have the opportunity to show their love for the local community, and we are gathering individuals, citizens, associations or anyone who wants to contribute. Individuals in local community councils who are political employees are often passive. They should take more responsibility and care for local communities and citizens, because it is their job, their mandate. If we interpret the principles of the Law on local self-government, the Councils of local communities are the first step that should solve, most often, communal affairs, which are the biggest problems of ordinary citizens. Unfortunately, in some communities these councils are skipped, because they are dysfunctional, so that citizens remain deprived of infrastructure projects, because there is no one to advocate for their initiatives. Communities that function positively solve these problems in a much simpler way, because the more citizens participate in the creation of action plans, the more transparent the work is and reflects the needs of all citizens. In such communities, citizens are visibly more motivated to enter the next year with new initiatives. So, based on my experience, I can say with certainty that in those communities where local community councils are more open, a larger number of people gather, initiatives are more successful, and citizens are more satisfied.
One of the communities that uses the resources provided by membership in the Network of Active Communities in different ways and in which the Local Community Council is open to citizens’ ideas is the Solina Municipal Council, which has a number of successfully implemented local initiatives behind it.
“In the last few years, there is almost no significant project in which the Network of Active Communities and the Tuzla Community Foundation did not participate and did not support us. Thanks to this, the premises of the local community were decorated, windows were replaced, the large hall was air-conditioned, the sanitary facilities were repaired, etc. In addition, there were more significant works at the Studenac stadium in Solina, which resulted in the construction of the grandstand, the construction of the children’s playground “Happiness Corner for a Little Paradise” and many other initiatives. We are currently working on several projects ecologicaly important for our community, and all of this gives us an incentive to dedicate ourselves to the development of our local community. The Network of Active Communities is certainly, together with the City of Tuzla, the most responsible for the very noticeable development of the Solina Municipality in the last few years. Thanks to all this, social life in Solina has risen to a higher level with constant development”, explains Jasmin Jogunčić, president of the Council of the Local Community Solina, Tuzla.
This way, which includes citizens, is a guarantee of more transparent and inclusive work of local communities. As Šimić claims, such local communities bring together citizens from different interests, mostly disappointed in the political system and the allocation of budget funds, who themselves want to contribute in ways they can. These are mostly elderly people, active women and informal youth groups. All of them have in common the desire for better children’s playgrounds, well-organized parks, clean rivers, forests, well-organized bus stations and other things that affect the quality of life in the area. It is precisely such initiatives that are being worked on through the Network, but on the other hand, this organization is trying to increase its membership and strengthen its own capacities within Local Works. Undoubtedly, in the future they will continue to work for the benefit of society, nurturing a healthy patriotism towards their country – one in which words are followed by concrete good deeds.
