Poland
Objective
The city of Toruń applied officially for the European Capital of Culture 2016. But until now there was neither a debate with the citizens of Toruń about this application nor a far-reaching concept to create this application.
Our NGO “Pracownia Zrównoważonego Rozwoju“ („Workshop of Sustainable Development“) wants to initiate a debate for the European Capital of Culture-application among the citizens of Toruń with the objective to create a sustainable development of Toruń until 2016 with a modern view about environment, society, culture and tourism.
Only with an open debate it is possible to create modern thinking among the inhabitants of Toruń so that they take part on an equal footing at this application. Through debate it is also possible to get support by the citizens for the European Capital of Culture-application.
Even the administration is interested in citizens' participation because they lack of a far-reaching concept for a convincing application. This is a reason why we are interested in collaboration with other NGOs or officials from all over Europe with experience in special topics for a sustainable city development.
Subjects
We will organize the debate with 3 panels on different topics and an INTRODUCTION at the beginning. We will invite to this debate by leaflets, posters and by the press. That way we hope to find interested citizens of Toruń who want to take part at the debate for the European Capital of Culture-application. Besides the interested citizens we still have the readiness of the Nicolas Copernicus University of Toruń and members of the City Council to join our debate. The university will provide the room for the conferences.
The introduction conference has to fix the further conferences and to create a vague city development strategy on which the debate will be orientated.
The first conference on the topic ENVIRONMENT will deal with ecological solutions of the traffic problems in Toruń now and in future. The next conference on this subject is about a modern and ecological waste management for Toruń. And the last conference on this subject will be occupied with the energy management.
We are interested to invite officials from Göttingen, the German twin town of Toruń which is developing into an ecological direction.
We want to integrate the know-how of Göttingen into the next subject – SOCIETY. At the first conference on this subject we want to show problems in the society and encourage people to organize in citizens` action groups or NGOs. We want to give minorities and discriminated groups the possibility to talk about current issues.
Also the problem of migration should be a topic at this conference. More and more young people are leaving Toruń because they do not find a job. We want to talk about how to manage the loss of population. For this topic we could invite members of the “Stadtforum Leipzig”, who have experience what to do with houses which do not have occupants anymore. This is not still a problem in Toruń but it could be one in 2016.
At the next conference we will talk about public space for spare time activities such as bicycling or skateboarding. We are sure that we here get a lot of ideas by the citizens of Toruń. This is an important topic for the application because only a city in which the citizens and inhabitants feel themselves good in leisure time can be a European Capital of Culture.
But a main aspect for a European Capital of Culture is of course the subject CULTURE AND TOURISM. At the first conference to this subject we want to take stock about Toruń as a city of festivals and modern and innovative arts. We know a lot of artists in Toruń who want to have a positive dialog about the official culture politics of the city. We hope to develop innovative strategies for culture activities before 2016. At this conference it is also important to talk about a modern motto for the application and for the tourism which also integrates all the topics we had at the conferences before.
But a Capital of Culture of whole Europe has also to invite cultures from all over Europe. So we want to talk at the next conference about a cultural program for Toruń as a multicultural city. Which cultures from Eastern and Western Europe do we want to invite and how in 2016? Here we also want to develop a better cooperation between Toruń and its five twin towns.
At the last conference we want to take a look in the German-Polish history of Toruń. Toruń is a foundation of German knights. During its history there was a lot of cooperation between its German and Polish inhabitants without any nationalism. Unfortunately in the twenty century there was a change and hostility between Germans and Polish has occured based on prejudices. Some of these prejudices still exist here in Poland and in Germany. Germans had a deep influence on Toruń, the Gothic Jewel, which now is Polish. At this conference we will break with some prejudices and taboos in the German-Polish history to create a new European future for our city. We think that this is also a basic for a Capital of Culture in a peaceful Europe.
