Citizens’ Voice On

This practice is a 3 day event, the case presented was held in Astypalea Island in 2020. The Municipality of Astypalea Island was challenged to initiate public dialogue among citizens on critical environmental issues as: Renewable energy sources and the installation of Air Mills, Circular Economy related to green Tourism and sustainable mobility principles influencing electric-mobility pilot projects. In order to increase the awareness on sustainable issues, Ecocity designed a 3 day multilateral event – one day for every thematic approach – aiming to inform, raise awareness and influence positively the behavior of the citizens towards green technologies and sustainability.

Specialists were invited to present, speak and discuss on a conference style event every thematic approach on the evening followed by open public dialogue next morning. Questions were answered, citizens constrains were discussed and submitted as proposals to public authorities. During the same period, parallel actions were performed in order to achieve cross influence perceptions. Volunteering school students were trained to search and report citizens knowledge and ideas on the issues to be discussed on the conference and the open dialogue. Results were presented on posters at the conference. Additionally, students participated to creative actions related to above mentioned themes decorating the school area. Also, a two days seminar on environmental training of educators working in Astypalea and the neighboring islands ran by the University of West Attica team.

The concept of the event and all actions along with the extensive publicity aimed to be the core theme for the government, citizens and the media on the practices performed in order to increase citizens involvement in the decision making process. Changes are not always welcomed by the society, especially when they are imposed. To achieve societal understanding of needed changes, authorities and government should respect to citizens views and ideas. To discuss and gain acceptance on important decisions, information and awareness is necessary. This is what the Astypalea project proved and achieved: a method in order to change attitudes and
behavior and create a model plan to accomplish efficient social dialogue.

If you find this activity interesting, please read more in the Background analysis.

Below you will find a promotion video for the activity produced by Ecocity.