A new six hearing sessions of “Citizen’s Voice” project

“One hand can’t clap a lone, local people’s council can’t be done a lone”

 

04/12/2009

 “I hope to see the decentralization before I die” by this simple words one of community grass-root leaders during a session of citizen voice project has expressed his suspicion in promises of local system reform which been written on newspapers. These words came in one session of the last six hearing sessions which have been held by Maat in different places of the project. The first session has been held on November 17, 2009 in Zagazig, in Sharkya Governorate. The second session was held on November 19, 2009 in Kerdasa in October Governorate. The third session was held in Helwan, on November 21, 2009. Another three hearing sessions were held in Qena Governorate, the first one was held on November 23, the second was held in the same day at the evening, while the third was held in November 24, in Armant.

These sessions are held in the framework of Citizen's Voice ,its right-based and developmental project implemented by Maat in cooperation with the Foundation for the Future (FFF) in a number of governorates of Egypt, in coordination with a group of NGOs in the governorates, in the context of Maat’s efforts to confirm networking and build the capacity of NGOs in the local level as one of the requirements for activating the participation of civil society organizations in the comprehensive national development, the project aims to build a mechanism for communication between citizens and elected members of local people’s councils and raise the efficiency and effectiveness of members of the local People's Councils response and the development of effective means to identify the needs of citizens through participation of citizens ,their elected members and executives in governorates , provinces and villages  .

If we try to find shared address of this sessions, it will be “hearing sessions for special categories with members of local people’s councils, some of these sessions have been allocated for youth as in the first sessions in Zagazig and Qena, as a session has been allocated for young girls in Kerdasa. Some of these sessions have been allocated for community based leaders in the target areas as in the second session in Qena, mean while the rest of session had gathered an integrated mix of citizens.

The sessions aimed at reaching the maximum levels of communication between citizens and members of local people’s council, through this session some of citizens’ demands have been determined, which affect directly their life circumstances, to be adopted by the members of local people’s councils through their meetings at the next period and pressure on the responsible executives for responding to people demands.

The hearing session was held in Zagazig has discussed the problem of employees bullying in car-park in the governorate and who call themselves Karta workers “ persons who collect transmit fees “ while they collect money from drivers without justification and without giving them receipts. As well as the problem of lack of cleaning companies’ commitment to the their contracts .The session focused on the recruitment of the Internet, social networking sites and blogs in monitoring problems of citizens, while at the hearing session was held in Kerdasa has been discussed the problem of the prevalence of early marriage of girls without documented papers in the region, especially Arab Marriage, or fake birth certificates to the girls for this purpose. The participants agreed that this problem requires concerted community-based organizations with local councils, religious and community grass-roots leaders to reduce the escalation of the problem also young girls raised the idea of internet recruiting for this purpose.

At a hearing session in Helwan citizens and members of the People's Councils discussed the absence of community awareness of rubbish problem and a lack of local capacity to rubbish disposal, also discussed the problem of non-delivery of facilities for some of the areas which they consider it as Slums, in time which is not available to transfer residents to another place that this problem appeared clearly in “Arab Ghoneem” area.

The three sessions were held in Qena were more wealthy and the results of their discussions were more profound and positive. Significant developments in the “Citizen's Voice” project, has resulted and Maat’s leaders’ participation as well as the project team contributed in the results and discussions.

For the first meeting for youth, the problem of the disconnect between youth and members of local people’s councils has been raised, which members responded that they are ready to be in any youth organization or grouping, it was agreed at the end of the meeting on the youth contribution in developing the website of the local people’s council in Qena with the support of Maat Foundation. Youth will contribute in the communication between citizens and the website through the transfer of citizen complaints to the Council through this website and evaluation study of the council will be made after a period of its establishment through Citizens Support Center (CSC) in the governorate and the participation of some of the youth.

At the second meeting of the community grassroots leaders, which was held on the same day on the evening, the participants discussed conditions and variables related to the relative orientation towards decentralization and the role of local People's Councils at this stage, discussions focused mainly on how to contribute to the reflection of the trend towards decentralization on the quality of services provided to citizens in a practical way. It was agreed to establish a kind of partnership between NGOs and members of local people’s councils under the umbrella of CSC for continuous monitoring of the quality of services and assist members of the People's Councils to participate effectively in planning for local development.

The last meeting was held in Armant the participants had discussed the problem of the sanitation project stumbling and delayed delivery of the “Al zaheer Al Sahrawy “villages. It was agreed that the members of the governorate council to apply request for information the officials about the two problems, and trying to form a popular committee to determine the the problems of “Al zaheer Al Sahrawy “villages.

The problem of lack of control on follow-up literacy classes has been discussing ,so it was agreed to form a popular committee in all village be responsible for follow-up to these classes and a community-based  association has been allocated in each village to be the Technical Secretariat of the Committee and this committee will present a monthly report to the President of the local People's council of the province (Markaz), and Afforestation subject has been discussed, it was agreed that this operation is carried under the supervision of NGOs in villages.