Four new discussion seminars in the framework of "citizen's voice" project

Local Problems is a reflection of the problems of the local people's council

 

21/06/2009

 

As if the citizens are waiting to place the loudspeakers in front of them to scream pointing out the suffering and pain, open the channels to them to talk and express their troubles and concerns that have burdened them, and to find someone can hear their complains and disclose the neglect of their executives toward them and ignore of their elected representatives in the people's and legislative council for their demands and their pains and break their relationship with them as soon as the election season began shaking off.

 

We are always in "Maat" keen to be in the panel discussions of the draft the voice of the citizen to be windows for citizens in the governorates and regions of target, in this context, four seminars were held recently by "Maat" in Armant, Qena regions in Qena governorate, Alwalda village in Helwan governorate, and Kerdasa region Thursdays June 18, 2009, and Friday, June 19, 2009, and Saturday, June 20, 2009, and Sunday, June 21, 2009.

 

These workshops take place in the framework of project activities "citizen's voice" implemented by "Maat" in collaboration with the Foundation for the Future (FFF) in a number of governorates and in coordination with a group of NGOs in these governorates, and building the capacity of civil society organizations at the local level, these seminars have been established in coordination with the "key of life" institute, "Her Majesty" institute, Arab Foundation for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, the project aims to build a mechanism for communication between citizens and members of local popular councils elected and raising the efficiency and effectiveness and response of the members of the local people's councils, and the development of effective means to identify the needs of citizens.

 

The seminars aimed at raising the awareness of citizens, the work of local people's councils and raise their ability to assess the work of elected members who represent them on these boards, the seminars aimed to monitor the local problems and the urgent needs of the citizens and the interaction of council members with citizens in the solution of these problems, the workshops aimed at disseminating the concept and culture of decentralization and good local governance among citizens at the local level, and prepare them to deal with the variables associated with the empowerment of local councils.

 

The four workshops have revealed on a range of problems in the areas the panel discussions held in it, the most important and most common problem was water problems and the high cost of  water and the poor quality and pollution, all of which are surprising in a country like Egypt have the River Nile, but the reality says that if the negligence attended the resources wasted.

 

The other problem raised by the seminars are the problems of road and the isolation of villages and hamlets far from the construction and the absence of paved roads, this problem exist in another places such as "Kerdasa" region who suffers from the problem of interruption of public transport lines which link the region with the main areas in Greater Cairo as in the previous, this comes at a time, where Kerdasa turned from village to city.

There are other variety problems revealed by the seminars such as the problem of illiteracy among women and the stalled efforts to erase because of the lack of government support on one hand and the complexity of administrative procedures on the other hand and lack of motivation of students from a third party, there were also problems relating to health conditions and lack of health services and some called for the conduct of medical convoys in disadvantaged areas.

 

Remain to comment a very important comment said  by one of the participants in seminars where she commented on the absence of the role of the elected members of local People's council that" if the role of the Members is to resolve the problems of the masses then as long as there are problems, there is no members" we believe that this is the best expression of this link between the problems of citizens at the local level, and the problems of their representatives in the People's Councils.