This experience was presented to the 10th IOPD Award
Description
The development of the cultural strategy is an ongoing process and for the moment has been divided into two phases of public consultation. The first phase started on November 2014 and lasted 9 months by finishing the planning part and the main body of the Strategy. The second phase lasted from September 2015 to January 2016 focusing on the specialisation of the actions emerged from the first phase.
Although many citizens of Kalamata have already developed voluntary action especially in the social sector and most of them are organised in clubs and institutions, the experience of the working groups was unprecedented and quite embarrassed in the beginning. There were 8 working groups with one facilitator each and weekly meetings aiming at documenting, evaluating and proposing ideas regarding the theme of the group.
The working groups were:
1. Performing arts
2. Literature
3. Music
4. Cultural Infrastructure
5. Place Identity
6. Cinema/Video Art
7. Socially Vulnerable Groups
8. Visual Arts
KALAMATA:21 made an open call describing the objectives of the initiative and inviting all the citizens to participate. Primarily, the impression of curiosity, mistrust and hesitation was given by the participants but changed very quickly. Because of the long term goal, as we had to design a strategy for the next decade, it was difficult to train participants to think big and in a planning way. Some groups proceeded with a great success and engaged more and more members and in some others the facilitation was really hard as people from the same sector had never been around the same table discussing their common issues. Marginalized people, citizens in remoted areas and participants that could not attend the meetings could send their proposals on an online platform which is now full of post it ideas. In the end, all the working groups were proved to be really productive with interesting results and two of them decided to organise events and present them in public.
The success that took us by surprise was that of the citizens participatory workshop Now what? Praxis. Although its subject and terminology were new for Kalamatas audience, the attendance was more than expected and the enthusiasm of the participants was big. People got to know easily each other, divided into teams depending on projects, and helped each host to deeply analyse his project and move it closer to implementation. Throughout the event feelings of collaboration, activity and positive attitude towards participatory methods were intense. This lab gave boost to the second phase of working groups which started one month later.
Three new working groups Socially Vulnerable Groups, Place Identity (including subgroups) and Artistic Production, started their meetings with a more specific purpose. To act as examples of implementation of selected ideas they proposed in the previous stage. It proved to be tougher to implement theory but the members tried hard. The Socially Vulnerable Groups worked in a great way trying to sensitize shop owners to make their stores accessible and we have already the first indication of changes. Another subgroup of Place Identity, the Alternative Tourism had so devoted members that they became independent and still continue their actions despite the end of the public consultation. All the information and results from the public consultation together with the first draft of the Cultural Strategy were further worked by a Cultural Committee especially set up to provide scientific feedback and finalize the Strategy.
Now, that the process completed its second round leading to the creation of the first ever Cultural Strategy in Kalamata and one of the few in the Greek context,
it is considered that it was a hard process but with sincere devotion by the engaged citizens.
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