For applicants from Slovakia:

 

 

The focus of the “Right to the city” project is to introduce the theory and practice of the “right to the city” and adapt it to the social reality of the Eastern European cities.

 

The central element of the project is a 12-day youth forum, aiming to create a space for group learning and the exchange of experiences for 20 young activists from Budapest, Bratislava, Prague and Warsaw who work for social justice in their cities.

 

During the forum through various methodological workshops, theoretical inputs, field trips and film screenings, participants will acquire new perspectives on urban society and methods of active participation to enable them to act more effectively against social exclusion.

 

As part of the project, a public round-table discussion and a photo exhibition will be organised, a website will be launched and a CD Rom and booklet will be published about the right to the city.

 

 

 

The concept of „right to the city” or „droit á la ville” originates from French sociologist Henri Lefebvre in the 1960s. According to British-American geographer David Harvey, the “right to the city” is a response to the question “what kind of city we really want to live in?”

 

The question of what kind of city we want cannot be divorced from that of what kind of social ties, relationship to nature, lifestyles, technologies and aesthetic values we desire. The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.

 

 

Participants of the 12-day youth forum are 20 Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian and Polish young people engaged in social and cultural initiatives in their capital cities as volunteers or activists striving to create socially inclusive and culturally diverse cities.

 

This call is open to participants from a wide range of fields (e.g. environmental protection, disability rights, ethnical/cultural/sexual minority rights, anti racism, street art, community development, migrant integration, fight against poverty, self-organisation, etc.)

 

 

* February 5, 2010: Deadline for applications

* February – March, 2010: Preparation for the youth forum (2 meetings, working on the photos, preparation of the socio-walk in Budapest, etc.)

* April – June, 2010: Follow-up projects (CD-Rom and information booklet, initiatives of participants)

 

 

- age between 20 and 25

- active participation as a volunteer or activist in a group, social movement promoting urban social justice in Budapest

- active participation in the forum, its preparation and follow-up

- good communication skills in English (the working language of the forum is English)

 

ATTENTION!