Consultant Tomislav Beronić from the company Dalmaconsult Ltd. held a presentation of IPARD Measure 302 at the Rural Tourist Info Center in Gvozd today. This Measure is a component of the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) for Rural Development. Its name is “Diversification and development of rural economic activities” and includes investments in direct sales of agricultural products, processing at farms, traditional crafts, freshwater fishery, mushroom production and rural tourism services. Although the conditions for using IPARD funds are rather demanding, the presented examples of good practice e.g. small trout fish farms, possibilities for door to door sales, mobile sales of agricultural products or improvement of accommodation capacities in rural tourism, raised the participants` interest. In the near future, the Center for Civil Initiatives is planning to organize new activities to strengthen the capacities of rural tourism service providers. Let`s just add that we treated ourselves to excellent apple chips brought to us by the producer – Dragan Bjelivuk from “Naša zemlja” cooperative.

The Center for Civil Initiatives has initiated an education programme for tourist guides within the project of Cross-Border Cooperation with BiH. The programme is attended by 8 participants from 5 target municipalities of Karlovačka and Sisačko – Moslavačka Counties and one CCI employee. All of the participants held a work meeting today at the Rural Tourist Info Center – a beautiful wooden house in Gvozd where they agreed upon the action plan for the next 9 months.

Up to 100 locations with touristic potential from the municipalities of Barilović, Vojnić, Krnjak, Gvozd and Topusko will be registered and then promoted through the brochure, web page and functioning of the Rural Tourist Info Center in Gvozd as tourist destination spots soon to be offered as part of the tourist services` market.

A total of nine tourist guides, soon to finish the programme, will volunteer in different activities connected with rural tourism development within the CCI`s rural development programme.

The collection of papers, published for the first time by the Centre for Civil Initiatives, presents the selected chapters on social work in the community. It will facilitate the leadership of community development process for students, social workers, local community practitioners, community leaders and institutions.

The papers are collected by lecturers from HAN University in Nijmegen, Netherlands and mostly present the social work practice in the communities of Great Britain and Netherlands. The papers can be easily understood and transferred to our action framework and conditions, due to the universal nature of available community social capital and resources, as well as its developing relationships.

The collection of papers will primarily be used for the purposes of organizing a summer course for social workers and other professions involved in the community development process, as well as for all civil society organizations, practitioners and students launching initiatives for community empowerment and development.

Zbornik: Rad na području razvoja zajednice
(in Croatian)

On December 14th 2011, Dr. Anneke Touwen and Mr. Hay van der Sterren from HAN Univerity in Nijmegen, Netherlands have awarded diplomas to the participants of the three – year community work programme within the project “Community development work in Croatia, education of students and professionals”. During the project, 5 members of CCI team, 3 social workers from Karlovac and Petrinja, as well as 2 representatives of youth organizations from Petrinja, improved their knowledge and skills in this field of work.

The project was financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands through the MATRA Programme. Its total value was 579.00 Euros and it was implemented on two levels: academic and practical. The academic level was implemented by the Social Work Study Centre of Zagreb University together with HAN University. The practical level was implemented by the Center for Civil Initiatives.

Some of the project results are: expansion of the subject “Community Organization and Development” at the Social Work graduate programme, proposal of the postgraduate programme of community work and development and its establishment at the Faculty of Law of Zagreb University.

The practical part included the implementation of two pilot projects in Petrinja and Karlovac that enabled applying in practice the theoretical knowledge and principles studied in the Social Work graduate programme.

Ten awarded members of CCI team have gained knowledge and skills for community work and for organizing further training courses for all interested attendants. Therefore, this field of work in Croatia has become richer with 10 new experts.

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