1. Citizens’ Workshops
We engage diverse communities in physical deliberation workshops for issues of local or national importance. Using participatory methodologies, citizens and relevant stakeholders co-create solutions for issues that directly affect their lives.
2013-2015: 7 Citizens’ Workshops held in Athens, Mesologgi, Kozani, Volos and Thessaloniki:
PEDIO AGORA: Shop owners, municipal officers, activists and inhabitants of Varvakeios Square in Athens co-designed 6 proposals for the revival of the neighborhood
SYNTAGMA 2.0: Experiencing the World Cafe method, Citizens in Athens, Messologi and Thessaloniki took part in the bottom-up creation of a New Constitution for Greece
2. Urban Events
Through public exhibitions, urban dinners, open air activities and artistic interventions, we engage local communities to learn about each city, imagine its future and take action in the present to redefine and regenerate public spaces.
2013-2015: 96 Urban Events held in Athens, Kozani, Thessaloniki, Korinthos and Patras:
IMAGINE THE CITY: exhibitions revealed existing proposals by architects, designers and urban planners for concrete urban spaces in Kozani, Korinthos, Patras and Thessaloniki. Through presentations, 3D models and digital material as well as several parallel events, local teams opened the dialogue about how Greek cities and urban culture are shaped.
3. Trainings
We host experiential training programs in participatory leadership, process design and new methods for citizens’ engagement and physical deliberation, building the capacity of practitioners in different sectors across Greece.
2013-2015: 7 trainings held in Athens, Mesologgi, Kozani, Volos and Thessaloniki engaging 265 participants from 15 Greek cities.
BE PART! Public servants, NGO leaders, Social Entrepreneurs, teachers started to implement participatory methods in their own projects and communities.
4. Consulting services
We work with private companies to redefine Corporate Social Responsibility strategies and make the necessary shift from consumer to citizen, developing creative urban regeneration interventions. We support local authorities that wish to engage citizens in decision-making processes and develop innovative tools for participatory governance.
SYNATHINA: We supported the bid-writing process of the Municipality of Athens that won the Mayors Challenge Competition by Bloomberg Philanthropies and a prize of 1 million euros for its new Department for Civil Society.
5. Interdisciplinary Conferences
We invite international researchers and activists to share best practices on Civic Engagement and Participatory Design and to develop strategic partnerships with local initiatives and organisations.
15 experts from 6 countries got involved in the POLITEIA 2.0 International Forum for Citizens Engagement held on 21/03/2015 in Athens to discuss “participatory design from the public square to the national constitution” . Watch all presentations here
6. Digital Tools
We partner with high-tech companies in order to design open source digital tools that can empower translocal community building and improve open government platforms.
ACTIVE COMMONS (under development) is a platform that facilitates cooperation between translocal communities working on the same cause. Through shared maps and calendars of activities and shared files, different civic initiatives can exchange know-how and scale up their impact.
DEMOCRACIT is a tool developed by Scify in order to make existing open gov platforms in Greece more effective. It improves the process of commenting, provides summaries of bills and facilitates data analysis.
