GoodWillage 1.3

This is the third part of a longer process of a village creating activity. Village planning is a
great tool to form a group into a community. This activity can be an aid for the group to the topic of deurbanisation, they can create the management of the village with formulating guidelines and motivations to maintain interest.

Practitioners:

This method was developed by Julcsi Szabó (community developer, project manager)
through community development studies and during her EVS. Julcsi works as a coordinator at InSite Drama, and in the field of youth development at a theatre in Budapest. Her goal is creating an environment where youth can feel safety and security to play, act, create and develop themselves.

Objectives:

The aim of this activity is to create a surroundings where they are able to prepare a community of a village by using their creative thinking, by using their ability of group work and by formulating their needs. During the second part it is important to focus on complex thinking while they do the interview.

Structure of the process:

While we are refreshing our memory with the ideas of the previous workshops, we can remind ourselves that participants can be active citizens of their community. In this part they can plan together from their own positions, or they can co-work with other participants as organisations, think big, create a useful, sustainable project to cover local issues.

1. Refresh our memory with what we did in the first and the second part of the Good-Willage workshop.

Focus on the strengths, and on all we have done for the village(s) that we have planned. (10 minutes)

2. The task is for small groups (2-3 people) today:

There is a tender announced for the development of the village. Your organisation can apply either individually or in collaboration with a local company. You have 30 minutes (at least).

The presentation should answer the following questions:

> Who is affected at the working level?
> Who is the target audience of the project?
> How can the village community be addressed with it? How does it help their daily lives?
> What resources are needed beyond financial support?
> How can they communicate this development to the village?
> Is the project sustainable?
> What other organisations could be involved in the application (if any)?
> What local problem could this tender address?
> (at advanced level: Can we make a SWOT analysis for our application? What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the development plan? Can we create a financial plan for the project?)

3. In the second part of the workshop small groups will present their project.

Make sure there is an opportunity provided for everyone to ask questions from the creators, and provide time for each group to re-write and re-think their presentation if they feel so, and add comments before voting. (appr. 20 minutes)

End of the workshop: voting. Tell the rules to the participants: they can vote for as many projects as they want, but not for their own project. Let’s ask the voters in each round, why they vote/do not vote for that work: focus on the strengths, or find the opportunities for improvement in each project. (Those projects which win at least 75% of the votes will win.) (10 minutes)

Your Approach:

The group can think and actively prepare themselves on the topic of one of the most serious
problems today: ageing villages and rural unemployment, and can define how sustainability could work in their lives, and how they can creatively work together in their everyday lives and during projects.

Further readings:

(see GoodWillage 1.1)

Remarks

I suggest creating groups with no more than 8 participants.

Source/Acknowledgments:

Written by: Julcsi Szabó, InSite Drama, Hungary

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