Openly about Public Spaces

The issue of public spaces and their availability, and the availability of information about them are key issues when we discuss systematical civic education and activism. This is particularly significant in the case of youth organization, because despite there is a need, most youth initiatives, projects and groups have no access to spaces for organizing. This is the result of unclear procedures and conditions for applying, covert jurisdiction of institutions, a lack of information and goodwill. The transition process and accompanying privatization plans additionally marginalize this issue on the political agenda, and it is also marginalized among other civil society issues in Serbia.

Civic Initiatives' Youth Program has become intensively occupied with these matters primarily because a significant segment of youth activism in Serbia is made of informal youth groups, which have no resources needed for their communication with authority representatives, and also because existing state-owned spaces are not enough used for satisfying the needs of wider social groups. 

OPENLY ABOUT PUBLIC SPACES is focused on:

1. Collecting and systematizing information of public interest related to available public spaces within municipal jurisdiction

The first step is to provide transparency and availability of information. On May 21, we required from 160 municipalities in Serbia to send us the list of available public spaces existing on their territory, and also an explanation of jurisdiction and procedures related to their use by citizens' associations and youth groups.

By the beginning of August, we received responses from 103 municipalities and most of them directed us to responsible institutions or municipal acts which regulate the usage of public spaces. Therefore, we may conclude that municipalities have no developed procedures regarding this issue, and not even up-to-date record of the spaces that are on their disposal. What can also be noted is that asking for information with reference to the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Interest is still insufficiently developed mechanism, so most interested citizens' groups cannot use and enforce their rights by referring to this law.

2. Contacting municipal governments for developing procedures that should be followed for acquiring available spaces for activities and programs of citizen groups and youth groups in particular

Apart from spaces that are given to some public enterprises founded by the municipality and rented under market conditions, there is a whole network of community centers that can be used by citizens. However, the municipal administration has no developed procedures that should be followed for gaining spaces, which are primarily used by political parties and few citizens' associations, mainly those which have some contacts and resources to communicate with the municipal authority.

Therefore, municipalities must design and establish procedures for allocating available spaces within their jurisdiction to interested citizens' associations, and also equally enough to unregistered youth groups. One of possible models might include staging a competition periodically with clear conditions and criteria that should be used in making selections. Certainly one of main criteria should be the usefulness of offered activities for the wider community in which the community center or the allocated space is supposed to serve. The key segment is to work on making these procedures visible, simple, transparent and available to the wider public.

3. Promoting possibilities of using spaces within municipal jurisdiction, particularly among youth groups

Available spaces within the municipal jurisdiction are not used because covert administration, and because citizens have no practice of communicating directly with authority representatives to seek their right to the availability of information and also to the space for self-organizing.

We must interpret and systematize all received answers to make them readable, available and clear.

Moreover, in the period to come, Civic Initiatives' Youth Program will work on raising this topis in the wide public. This means presenting the concept of public spaces (within a wider social, legal and political context), sensibilizing and acquiting youth and sub-cultural groups representatives with practices of advocacy of allocating and/or gaining spaces by different activistic initiatives. A separate topic is also the segment of instigating a wider platform for acting and networking with the aim of gaining and taking over concrete public spaces in Serbia.

The special segment of the campaign "Openly about Public Spaces" is also the blog www.javniprostori.org