Norway Efb

Tel. +47 23 47 49 90 Department of Culture and Unit for Sustainability, Community Affairs, Sagene Municipality District Visiting address: at Sagene samfunnshus, Kristiansandsgate 2 Post address: Sagene samfunnshus, Box 3460, Bjølsen, 0463 Oslo; Norway Contact person: Susan Guerra, Unit director.

Working with the public and not only for the public The challenges we face in Norwegian urban neighbourhoods are complex. As a local authority it is imperative to us that we provide services which meet the population’s needs. At the same time, the authorities in Norway are facing structural and economic changes influenced also by European policies.

District Sagene, within the City of Oslo municipal administration, has established the Unit for sustainability as part of the Department of community and cultural affairs: The Unit for Sustainability manages the Sagene Community Center run by the municipality. A meeting place and information center for sustainable community development facilitating the citizens of the district.. As well as working with community development concerning local city planning the center is also the main office for the administration, development and maintenance of the district parks and recreational areas for the over 30 000 citizens who live within the district. District Sagene has been a deprived area in Oslo with problems both concerning the social and the physical environment. In the Sagene area there is a large concentration of social housing, i.e. rental units provided by the municipality. People living in these circumstances have difficult living conditions and difficulty at knowing how to change these. The three staff members, groups of volunteers and organizations work with different aspects of the social issues at hand; such as relations within a multicultural community and innovations to revitalize local democratic activity. Due to a large increase of house building within the private market the social contours of the district encounters change which creates social “gaps” in demographics. The administration and local politicians are concerned to provide possibilities for interventions suitable to meet the challenges at hand. The physical environment is dominated by heavy traffic, an unsafe social environment for children, and areas that are unsuitable for

playing and recreation. In addition, there has been a lack of follow up of the problems and of coordination by responsible authorities. Our projects and interventions have aimed at teaching through workshops and cultural actions, how people can improve the physical and social conditions in the area, particularly those concerning public housing, together with local authorities. Some of these have resulted in some improvement of the living conditions. Our work aims at changing the situation by addressing these major issues in the community through providing free digital services and community information about traffic, environment, parks and collective recreational areas, meeting places, town squares, physical safety, building social networks for citizens and their forums. The Unit for Sustainability has its offices at the Sagene Community Center, which also serves as an educational and meeting place for the citizens in the community, the meeting place for the local political council and for information exchanges amongst all parts of the community. The aim is to involve citizens in the sustainable development of their local community through participatory methods and collective activities. The Unit aims to provide measures for social inclusion and intercultural programmes integrated in all course work and information services. Our affiliated organizations who use the center provide a wide variety of classes for all ages. Our organization serves the general public but is mandated to also serve the needs of the population with special hindrances for local participation. These groups can be persons with immigrant status in Norway or persona with physical hindrances for mobility. Our services include computer courses for adults such that they have access to digital technology and education in how to use these. Our organization also facilitates subsidized courses for economic disadvantaged children within the arts and crafts; workshops concerning environmental issues (recycled crafts classes and exhibits), public art workshops concerning community identity building for adults. The Unit for Sustainability also serves the public through facilitating participatory workshops with unemployed youth and adults as well as work training at the community center. Our organization works for a sustainable local community development and wants to improve methods for engaging the public in local decision making. This field of work is complex and demands a focus on cross-sectorial and experiential, long term processes for learning. In community development work we ourselves are learners together with those we serve. We see that the Grundtvig Lifelong Learning Programme and key competences for active citizenship will enable us to develop our

methods for participation in local democracy building of sustainable communities. Through the partnership we will work with some of the key competences, like communication in foreign languages and interpersonal, intercultural and social competences (reference: Communication from the Commission: A coherent framework of indicators and benchmarks for monitoring progress towards the Lisbon objectives in education and training, Brussels, 21.02.2007). Working with the public and not only for the public is of increasing importance. Throughout Europe and Norway there are clear indicators that the public must have a minimum of basic skills and knowledge in order to work, and become motivated to work, with authorities and politicians in local community development issues. It is our objective that working with European partners will enable us to understand the different contexts for active citizenship and social sustainability. At the same time we learn more about other European countries and different values