18. 03. 2011

TV PROGRAM OF CIVIC INITIATIVES "CITIZENS DECIDE"

ANEM stations have supported another activity of the partner from the NGO sector, the NGO "Civic Initiatives", by broadcasting of the TV program "Citizens decide"!

In every local community in Serbia, there are problems that people face on a daily basis. The question is whether and how citizens engage in solving these problems. Is ascertaining the problems only thing they do or they organize themselves and advocate their solutions? Do they wait for local government officials to organize their life or they participate in making political decisions that affect them, their children, neighbors and relatives?

Four 15-minute TV episodes "Citizens decide", produced by Civic Initiatives and Study 4, talk about citizens of Nis, Subotica, Sabac and Kragujevac who do not wait for simple and given solutions, but try to change things in their local communities. Gathered in citizens' associations, they have initialized local initiatives for solving numerous problems in their communities, within the project "Citizens decide" - citizens of Subotica have been trying to deal with the lack of social services for children who lived with foster families and they have also been working on establishing a fund for gifted Roma children; citizens of Sabac have advocated for people with disabilities to participate in decision-making process at the City level and they have also launched an initiative for establishing the Roma Inter-Municipal National Council; citizens of Kragujevac have engaged in promotion of student entrepreneurship as well as in building facilities for the care of persons with disabilities; the episode on Nis shows what citizens have done in terms of solving problems of their fellow citizens - the Roma, not able to use the premises where their Cultural Institute had been based before '80-ties when it was confiscated as well as what activities are planned by them in order to solve the problem of the lack of public garages and cinemas in Nis.

Each episode presented the ways in which an individual could engage, lobby and advocate a solution for a certain problem, and all this through the presentation of the document "Code of Good Practice for Civil Participation in the Decision-Making Process" passed by the Council of Europe in 2009.

As of March 2011, 20 ANEM local and regional TV stations will broadcast episodes of the TV program "Citizens decide": Novosadska TV form Novi Sad; RTV OK from Kovacica, TV Spektar from Sombor, RTV VK from Kikinda, RTV Mlava from Petrovac on Mlava, TV Smederevo from Smederevo, TV Plus from Valjevo, RTV Caribrod from Dimitrovgrad, TV Leskovac from Leskovac, RTV YU Eco from Subotica, RTV Trstenik from Trstenik, TV Alfa from Uzice, RTV Sokobanja from Sokobanja, RTV Pancevo from Pancevo, RTV Prima from Bajina Basta, TV Sumadija from Arandjelovac, RTV Krusevac from Krusevac, Timocka TV from Zajecar, TV Nezavisna 017 from Vranje and B92 Info from Belgrade.