President Stevo Pendarovski addressed today in Ohrid the closing of the Summer School for Participatory Management and Civil-Public Partnership: “Liquid Frameworks, Solid Institutions — Building Participation from the Bottom Up”, organized by Kooperativa – Regional Platform for Culture.
“The independent cultural sector is the social group that is fighting, apart from its primary interest in the sphere of modern cultural policies and for changes in the democratic principles of the community, which will be applicable to everyone, not only to the small privileged groups”, said President Pendarovski in his address, assessing that there is nothing more important than connections, with a clear common sign, such as this regional connection in the Balkans.
“I sincerely hope that this platform will thoroughly strengthen the cultural cooperation in the Balkans and beyond, but also open new horizons and perspectives in the social situation of the independent cultural sector and its cooperation with political structures with different ideological marks, which will certainly help in the creation of new, better policies than the ones we have today”, the President said in his address.
The goal of the Summer School, which was attended by participants from 11 countries from Southeast Europe and the Western Balkans, is to build the capacities of civil society organizations to create innovative models of civil-public partnership, participatory management, active citizenship and emancipatory institutional transformation.
Earlier, President Pendarovski had a meeting with representatives of “Kooperativa” where he was introduced to their current activities and modern and innovative regional structures for cultural cooperation. At the meeting, the President welcomed their commitment to improving working conditions in the civil sector in contemporary art and culture, as well as the projects to develop and strengthen cultural cooperation in Southeast Europe.
