Форуми во заедницата

The Community Forum Programme held its first session in Cashka municipality, on Friday. There were about 90 people from 42 villages, part of the municipality.

The inhabitants, who debated in the Todor Janev primary school, were introduced with the programme dynamics, its importance, but also the possibility for their active participation in the process of decission making for projects of vital importance for the municipality.

By voting, they selected the topic they will be discussing during the following months, to be spatial planning and municipal land development
    “Inhabitants of Cashka believe this is a good project, there are many issues that have not been solved, roads, village streets, sewage, and this will be a good opportunity to solve them,” says Bekim Saluti, municipality inhabitant.
    Inhabitants believe this is a very important programme for them since they will have a possibility, for the first time, to take part in the local democracy in decision making in cooperation with the local authorities, to debate and equal participate in public discussions for municipal problems.
    “This is a well developed project, we now need to get introduced to the whole process and to hope we will have benefit from all this”, stated Nina Markova, Principal of the Petre Pop Arsov primary school of Bogomila village.
    Among the forum participants were the mayor Stojan Manevski, the representative of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Ibrahim Mehmeti, the Director of the Center for Institutional Development (CIRa) Zoran Stojkovski, as well as members of the municipal administration and the media.
    “We are pleased to be part of the Community Forums Programme, financed by the Swiss Agency, since this process is needed in making decisions related to the municipality needs. Now the inhabitants have the possibility to make decisions.” stated mayor Manevski.
    At this first sessions the inhabitants, using public participation,  decided to debate on several areas within the selected topic, establishing corresponding working groups like education, culture, youth, sport, environment and tourism, health, rural centers, problems with roads, municipal administration and business,.
    “The basic goal of this project is to introduce a new approach of practicing democracy and a new approach to solving problems”, stated Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s representative, Ibrahim Mehmeti.
    According to CIRa’s director Zoran Stojkovski, “Community forums are important. Here inhabitants come, lobby and vote for municipal projects”, says Stojkovski.
    The programme is worth four million denars, with three million coming from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and a million from the municipality. It is implemented with CIRa’s facilitation, and in addition to Cashka municipality, it is implemented in Strumica, Karbinci, Cair and Debar municipalities. The Programme started in April and will continue until November this year, including six sessions. The projects will be implemented from November until August 2009.