Almost 40 representatives of 15 Initiative Groups coming from the most active municipalities and rural communes that had implemented programs of Polish-American Freedom Foundation attended the inaugural meeting of Partnership Development Academy at the PAFF Head Office in Warsaw on April 24 and 25.
They were welcomed by President of Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland Paweł Łukasiak, and Program Officer of Polish-American Freedom Foundation Kalina Grzeszuk-Zajączkowska, who presented the guidelines of the “PAFF Local Partnerships” program and objectives of Partnership Development Academy – that is the three-month-long training and consultancy series for initiative groups set up by NGOs, schools, libraries, and local leaders involved in various PAFF programs. It is expected that their participation in the Academy will result in new partnership projects and partnership development plans.
The method of local community animation for the common good, applied in the program, was presented in detail by expert of Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland Tomasz Schimanek. Next experts: Maria Wiśnicka of the Sendzimir Foundation, Sylwia Żmijewska of the Center of Citizenship Education, and Sylwia Gajownik of the Education for Democracy Foundation, using experiences gained in such PAFF programs as “Green Leader”, “Learning Schools” (LES) or the “Region in Transition” (RITA), presented practical ways of building partnership in such areas as ecology, work with young people, or support for refugees from Ukraine in small communities.
On the second day, the meeting participants took part in a workshop on the first element of the animation method – the diagnosis of needs and local community inclusion in creating projects. The workshop was conducted by Henryk Stawicki and Alicja Sadowska of Change Pilots.
In the coming weeks, the Initiative Groups will be working on other elements of Partnership Development Academy, such as making a map of local resources, creating a common vision, or setting up and planning the actions under the plan of partnership development. Their work will be supervised by Animators, the program alumni.
It is expected that the 9th round of “PAFF Local Partnerships” will result in setting up of 7 partnerships and 3 start-ups.
The objective of “PAFF Local Partnerships” program, managed by Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland, is to initiate and develop cooperation of various Polish-American Freedom Foundation programs participants in order to establish partnerships aimed at implementation of projects important for local communities. They perform their activities using the method of local community animation that allows them to build the common good on the basis of social diagnosis performed earlier. To date, 75 partnerships have been established under the program (including 17 start-ups) and their activities covered 121 municipalities and rural communes. They involved almost 165,000 participants and over 1,200 partners.
