News

The network of 20 county Civil Information Centers (CIC), selected by the minister responsible for civil society relation has been operating for more than 5 years in 2019, but there was little tangible information available about their efficiency and results.

The professional jury of the contest selected 14 of the nominees to the shortlist of the Tree of the Year competition, one of which was to be chosen by the public as the Tree of the Year 2019 in Hungary and can take part at the European competition in February 2020.

This year again we held a joint meeting for the community organizers and participants of our Community-Organizing-Leadership program and other ones run by the Civil College Foundation. During the two-day meeting and training, 25 communities shared their experience with community problems and their successes, and learned new tools of the community organization methodology.

"The development and simple survival of a democratic society requires scientific research that is independent of political influence, as well as a diverse and prosperous civil society. Scientific results and information provide the basis for making decisions that are in the interest of all of us, for creating strategies and directions for progress. This is especially important today, when divisions are widening in our society and extremist ideologies and news without scientific foundations are spreading.

The 29th National Gathering of Environmental and Nature Conservation Organizations was held in Budapest between May 31 and June 2, 2019. This year the large-scale event was organized in an extraordinary way, together by the community of green CSOs. Ökotárs also took part in the work: among other things, we hosted a workshop on "Urban Green Areas and Communities" in our office on Friday afternoon.

Following the successful two-day kick-off training course involving 16 local CSOs, Ökotárs and its partners - Autonomia, Civil College and Carpathian Foundations - launched a small-scale grant call for local CSOs and informal citizen groups outside Budapest to implement joint campaigns on issues defined together, to organize in order to solve the problems experienced in their micro-region as well as to strengthen civic activism.

The Day of Birds and Trees, May 10, was the final deadline to nominate candidates to the Tree of the Year 2019 competition. By this date a total of 57 CSOs, schools, municipalities, and groups of friends had registered their favorite trees for the contest across the country.

The Local History Association 'Fodor Manó' created a "garden of traditions" by renovating the yard of an old peasant cottage in the neighbourhood of the country house in Battonya town.

Our training for civil society organizations mapped during the preceding months discussed topics such as civic roles, cooperation among active communities, building local networks, mobilization, advocacy and participation in local affairs. Besides the experts of the Civil College Foundation and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, guest speakers from neighboring countries, Slovakia and Romania provided an insight into the situation in Central Europe.

For the first time after three years, in 2019 the Hungarian tree became the winner of the European Tree of the Year competition.

"The Civilisation coalition published its manifesto on the occasion of March 15, signed by over a hundred organizations, including Ökotárs."

The project, supported by the European Union's LIFE program until the summer of 2022, was launched in earnest with a joint meeting in early 2019. The initiative, led by our Czech sister foundation Nadace Partneství and joined by eight organizations from the Visegrád-4 countries, aims at reducing the urban heat island effect by the development of green infrastructure that helps adapt to the impacts of climate change and make the settlements more livable.