An online training session for the Network of Act Locally Centers representatives was held on March 11-12, 2021. Over two days of hard work they were getting knowledge and skills useful in everyday activities for local community development, including needs and challenges of COVID-19 pandemic.
The event, held with the use of Hopin, was attended by a total of almost 170 people.
The participants were welcomed by PAFF Program Director Joanna Lempart who thanked Act Locally Centers for their effective motivating local communities to acting despite difficulties caused by COVID-19 pandemic. Joanna Lempart used also the occasion to welcome officially the following three new ALCs that have just joined the Network:
- The Land of Dinosaurs Local Action Group of Ozimek (Opolskie province);
- The Lower Vistula Bend Local Action Group of Kijew Królewski (Kujawsko-Pomorskie province);
- Trzebnica Hills Region Local Action Group Association of Trzebnica (Dolnośląskie province);
The PAFF Program Director pointed also to a new thematic path of the program – Act Locally and Ecologically, and the anti-crisis package established in response to the difficulties that arrived at the time of pandemic and was meant to be the continuation of the offer for Act Locally Centers. “We aren’t indifferent to things that have been happening for the last year and dominated lives of us all,” she said. She spoke also about the assistance offered under the 2nd round of the Support Fund for NGOs and Civic Institutions of Polish-American Freedom Foundation that will focus on counteracting the effects of pandemic in the area of education and support for social development of children and young people.
Next, President of the Academy for the Development Philanthropy in Poland Paweł Łukasiak, took the floor and told about the three pillars of the “Act Locally” Program. The first of them is Stability and Development Fund that will support geographical coverage of ALCs and development of their cooperation with local governments through local regranting programs. The remaining two pillars comprise the Thaw out Social Energy campaign and digitalization. “By reaching to new organizations and donors and cooperation with local governments the program triggers civic activity in quite new milieus,” Paweł Łukasiak said.
Next the participants listened to Scientifically About the Pandemic lecture given by Dr. Aneta Afelt, a geographer of UW Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computer Modelling, a member of Interdisciplinary Advisory Team for COVID-19 at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Dr. Afelt explained how SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus transferred from animals to people, how it proliferated further and what are the prospects of defeating the pandemic.
The expert of the Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland Tomasz Schimanek explained the legal aspects of regranting and conducted a debate on experiences in implementing and applying that mechanism of local governments and NGOs cooperation. The participants of the debate were representatives of local governments – Mayor of Złocieniec Krzysztof Zacharzewski and Secretary of Zaleszany Commune Sebastian Nabrzeski. The last item on the agenda for the first day of the training session was another debate, moderated by Paweł Łukasiak and attended by ALC representatives Stanisław Baska, Anna Jafernik and Lucyna Sobańska. They discussed good practices related to extending geographical coverage.
On the second day the training participants could learn more about digitalization of Act Locally program. The Program Coordinator Paweł Zań presented the plans to introduce e-signing of agreements and modernize the application generator. He also defined actions to be taken in local grant competitions that can be implemented by ALCs online. As a supplement to Paweł Zań’s lecture, representative of Autenti Jarosław Handke presented a platform for signing agreements with electronic signature.
Next there were two simultaneous sessions comprising six workshops and lectures. Participants of the first of them discussed with Ola Chodasz of Good Life Development Foundation how to get used to hybrid communication. Following that Oskar Grochowalski of Distance Foundation spoke about dispersed teams management, and Maciej Dębski of I Care for My Coverage gave a lecture on online work hygiene.
The second session included Paweł Łukasiak’s debate with ALC representatives on good practices of local community stimulation at the time of pandemic. The participants of that debate were: Monika Bojanowicz, Marta Czerwińska, Dorota Lenarczyk and Bożena Pełdiak. Next, Irena Jazukiewicz and Magdalena Noszczyk of WWF Poland Foundation presented the tools useful in ecological education, and Patrycja Ajanidis with Joanna Skowrońska of Allegro described the procedure of fundraising using Allegro Lokalnie platform.
Training sessions for members of Network of Act Locally Centers are part of the permanent offer of the program and are aimed at improving knowledge and skills of their participants as well as potential for development of local organizations.
“Act Locally” is a program of Polish-American Freedom Foundation managed by the Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland in cooperation with the network of 78 Act Locally Centers. Over 21 years the program supported over 132,000 local projects which were implemented with participation of over 4 million people, including about 230,000 volunteers.
