About US

OUR STORY

Libero welcomes you Loc@l page. This is a place where you can get information about our work on development of local communities in partnership with Local Authorities.

We believe that only by all sectors (public, private, NGO) joining forces for change can result in change we all want to see in our local communities. This is why we started working with our partners around Europe and Local Authorities from their cities to ensure that our global work on young people empowerment get its local impact.

We believe in education of citizens for participation in democratic processes at local level as starting point for their engagement later on national and European level. We gathered partners who believe same and established Loc@l as one of main pillars of our work.

Libero is recognized by local authorities as a partner who can give a contribution to cooperation projects that incite networking between different local communities and get involved in process of promotion of active citizenship at local level. On this path we are focused on citizens participation in all local processes important for achieving better communities from the region and support to European integration.

Within this initiative a series of projects and activities were implemented aimed at promoting European values, active participation and democracy at the local level. Thanks to our effort 5 cities from Serbia, Slovenia, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have signed a cooperation memorandum with a goal of promoting European values more effectively to the young people in their communities. More than 1000 young people from the Western Balkans region took part in our activities and got a chance to learn more about European integrations. We held workshops with over 100 high school students from Serbia with whom we worked on breaking prejudices, stereotypes and myths related to the European Union. In May 2019 we talked with more than 300 citizens of Belgrade on the topics related to European parliamentary elections within the manifestation “Days of Europe”, which was organised by European Delegation to Serbia. All our project activities within this initiative have been followed by social media campaigns aimed at educating the citizens and promoting European values. These campaigns have reached more than 300.000 people around Europe.

Some of the most important projects implemented within the Loc@l initiative include:

TranslatEU – Implemented with a goal of “translating” European policies and legislative into the language that is understandable to all citizens.

EUrope Talking – Aimed at introducing the citizens to the benefits of European integration and breaking prejudice and stereotypes about European Union. Living Library event was implemented in Belgrade within this project and more than 1000 citizens took part in it.

Evropa priča! – The goal of this project was to introduce high school students from Belgrade to the benefits of Serbia’s integration into the European Union.

sElect EU – Aimed at encouraging people to join discussions about the burning topics for the citizens of EU and from the Western Balkans region.

MAKE A MOVE
LIBERATE LOC@L (IDEAS)

By creating LOC@L Libero is commiting itself to the next level of contributing to better local communities which are coming closer to EU.

Here is where Libero will gather all its partners and knowledge in the field, initiate future cooperations and offer it to everyone who is interested in being a part in modern, more connected and eager to grow communities.

We believe that this portal will contribute to citizens’ understanding of what is important for better local communities, to understand EU intergation in light of their everyday lives and to learn how to use new media in understanding EU policies and theirown rights and duties coming out of this arrangement.

Last research conducted by European Integration Office of the Government of the Republic of Serbia in December 2016, showed that only 33% of respondents have positive perception of EU and that presence of prejudices like fear of losing national identity and lowering importance of our country in the decision making process, is high. Braking some prejudices and stereotypes through clear information to citizens about meaning of some reforms will help combat euroscepticism and promote idea of European citizenship.

At LOC@L we will talk about arguments of eurosceptics and “deconstruct” them answering those arguments with facts about how Union improves life of its citizens. We will use social media for this and also for celebrating divercity of local communities.