On October 22, the online inauguration of the 7th round of PAFF Local Partnerships was held. The newly established initiative groups will soon start implementation of their partnership projects for the benefit of their local communities.
Head of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation Representative Office in Poland Grzegorz Jędrys and PAFF Program Director Joanna Lempart welcomed the participants of the meeting, congratulated them, and expressed their appreciation for local coalitions that cooperate in implementation of partnership projects. Next, President of Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland Paweł Łukasiak took the floor. He spoke about the significant role played by activities for benefit of local communities, especially at the difficult time of pandemic.
After the ceremony of symbolic handing the cheques, the participants presented online their partnership projects that they are going to carry out in the present round of the program. The projects were designed after the diagnosis had been made in cooperation with local communities. They include:
- Creating a common base of shared resources that will allow a new quality in education (Płużnica rural commune),
- Common space for social activities (Mosina, Radlin),
- Thematic villages (Gaszowice, Międzyrzecz),
- Cultivating the natural heritage, with elements of ecology (Niepołomice, Fredropol),
- Cultivating local traditions (Janowice, Dragacz, Szumowo)
- Multiculturalism in the region (Gołdap),
- Building intergenerational bonds (Orneta)
- Development of town space, with elements of street-art (Lądek Zdrój).
Implementation of the projects in a total of 14 rural communes and municipalities will last till November 2021.
The last item on the inauguration ceremony agenda was the Building Empathy and Relationship at the Time of Epidemy – from Relations in Partnership to Relations with the Residents workshop conducted by psychologist Jacek Jakubowski, a TROP Group co-owner and supervisor, the initiator and founder of Empathy Center, and a member of Ashoka Association.
The objective of the program is to initiate and develop cooperation among participants of various PAFF programs to promote setting up of partnerships that can implement projects important to local communities. The program uses the method of animating local communities to build common good on the basis of a social diagnosis. So far in 6 rounds of the program a total of 45 PAFF Local Partnerships have been established, covering 97 municipalities and rural communes and involving over 780 partners. The program is managed by the Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland.
