July 20, 2015

​

The Catalys LEADER and Local Development Summer School will now take place at a date later in the year.  The course has proved popular with partners and we now have two new partners:

 

European Education Forum – will support the programme through the Europe for Citizens Programme, which encourages citizens’ participation in the European Union, by developing understanding of the Union and promoting intercultural engagement at the Union level.

EDIC (Zadar) – is the European Information Centre in Zadar which provides information about the European Union, its policies and opportunities and promotes civic engagement.

We are delighted to inform colleagues that the partnership supporting the summer school has grown to include two new partners.  However, the process of bringing new partners into the course and reflecting their ideas will take a little time.  This means that we cannot run the summer school at the planned time in September and will now look for a mutually acceptable time later in the year.  We will be in touch with all those who have made bookings and participants will be offered places at the later course.

The summer school is also supported by the LEADER Network of Croatia (LMH), Ministry of Agriculture and the Rural Business School (UK).

 

This year the summer school will embrace the Community Led Local Development (CLLD) theme alongside LEADER with the principles having moved from theory to practice for the first time.  We will look at early practice and we will have case studies, films and plenty of discussion, as well as good dalmatian cuisine.

The 2015 Summer School theme is ENERGY; both how to harness the energy of communities and how communities can provide for their own energy needs.  Rural Communities have many of the solutions to the challenges they face, the only thing they lack is an impetus to develop and a structure to do it within.  The EU’s LEADER and CLLD programmes offer both of these things, however the job of stimulating a community’s energies is subtle and skilled – it is called ANIMATION. For this reason LEADER and CLLD employ ANIMATEURS, not to be the source of all wisdom, but to stimulate and animate sustainable development.

The summer school will look at these skills and look at best practice examples of them being applied.

What can you expect – The Summer School is open and informative, the programme includes discussions, video clips, case studies, practical examples and plenty of opportunity for informal engagement with colleagues and experts.  In addition to the formal programme, participants will also be provided with links, information sources and learning materials.  The summer school will be delivered in English and Croatian and will be facilitated by Ivana Laginja and Ian Baker.

​

Who is it for: Public, private and NGO sectors involved in rural and local development and in particular those engaged with the LEADER programme from Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and neighbouring countries.