European Project Experiences
1993 - 2002
ARTICULAte (1995), LOGOS (1996 - 97)
LORE (1997 - 1999)
CIED (Cultural Innovation and Economic Development - ARTICLE 10, ERDF, 1997 - 1999)
REINVENT (CONNECT - Culture and Education, 1999 - 2001)
MONOPI (Cultural Heritage in Monasteries, 2004)
2002 - ongoing
Once Poiein kai Prattein was established as NGO - a non profit Urban Society following projects were undertaken or participated in. Primarily it meant working together with local and regional authorities.
Name | Project’s nature + concept | Type of Partnership | Result |
---|---|---|---|
MIRIAD 21 | Industrial Risks: SEVESO Directive II | Greek Coordination in conjunction with ECO MAIRES in Paris as project leader | Citizens' Participation, Good Practice Manual |
SISMA | Cultural heritage and seismic risks with Citizens as first rescuer | Support 3 Greek Partners in all work packages of the project | Vulnerability Studies, Civil Protection Exercise, Final Confernece in March 2007 |
GRDP | Environmental Evaluation | Subcontractor 2 – 1/2 | Reports |
RED CODE | Civil Protection | Advise 3 Partners in Crete: Iraklion City and Prefecture, Kastelli | help set-up, network |
HERMES | Protection and Promotion of Cultural Heritage through use of New Media | Network of Internet Radio, Advisor for Volos |
2 Studies: Museums and Cultural Planning, 2 years of Internet Radio, Sommer School, Symposium |
European project experiences
The two Interreg III B – CADSES projects: HERMES – promotion and protection of cultural heritage through use of the new media, and SISMA – the protection of cultural heritage against seismic related activities, entailed working and collaborating with political authorities while being engaged in cross-cultural partnerships. Involved as a NGO from the beginning, it meant bringing about the project, seeing through the set-up, doing substantial work and facilitating reporting and contact with the European Commission.
SISMA
The project involved four Italian, three Greek and one Slovakian partner.
POIEIN KAI PRATTEIN brought about the linkage between the four Italian partners and three different Greek types of authorities: a municipality on the island of Chios, the prefecture of Athens / Piraeus and the regional authority of Peloponnesus.
It should be pointed out that in the project POIEIN KAI PRATTEIN was not a sub-contracting partner even though we played in reality a much broader and further going integrative function in the project. We acted especially during the initial phase of the project as liaison between the three Greek and four Italian partners and therefore contributed as well to the overall coordination (in assistance to the project leader) of the project. Besides this, due to changes in government and therefore in political authorities bringing in with them new experts and consultants, we were engaged in a sort of training i.e. cultural adaptation to European project methodologies.
Still, a lot of expert knowledge was required in SISMA as multiple planning and other study requirements had to help political authorities come to terms with the need of protecting cultural heritage (both tangible and intangible) in case of seismic related activities. Anna Arvanitaki completed three vulnerability studies for the respective Greek Authorities and brought to bear her expert experience upon the project's development here in Greece.
POIEIN KAI PRATTEIN co-operated as well with Seismic experts like George Drakatos and Katie Valadaki and improved thereby know-how of GIS based maps and seismic studies. The SISMA project meant as well in its final phase to enter fully civil protection exercises which were performed both in Nafplion and Athens. As NGO of Civil Society POIEIN KAI PRATTEIN promoted throughout the project's life time the fact that the citizen should act as first rescuer.
GRDP
POIEIN KAI PRATTEIN was furthermore involved in the GRDP project: the Greening of the Regional Development Plans – a project designed to evaluate how the environmental impact of projects funded by the Structural Fund has been taken care of in two specific areas in Greece: the region of Western Greece and in the South Aegean.
MIRIAD 21
Also we have been engaged in bringing Greek partners – three local authorities – into the MIRIAD 21 project lead by ECO MAIRES in Paris. Here the main concern is civil protection for both citizens and children in the case of industrial accidents. It is a project that wishes to follow up the Seveso II directive of the European Union and therefore has to do with as much urban planning i.e. location of industry and use of industrial spaces as with industrial risk assessment. Of great interest in this project was the Citizens’ Forum and the Mini Miriad action involving school children in order to evaluate how they perceive industrial risks. The project sought to bring about European wide standards when it comes to risk assessment, emergency signals and procedures. To this, it meant citizens asking experts about safety procedures in terms of various categories of industrial activities.
Experiences in this project varied a great deal. Often things were complicated by a heavily centralized project coordination with not really enough resources given to the partners to complete the more serious background studies needed for further actions to implement the SEVESO II directive in full. It was also a difficult task to bring the Municipalities on board, while one falling clearly into the jurisdiction of Seveso II due to having 120 industrial plants in its area did not join - an indiciation of resistance within Greece to EU directives.
HERMES
The HERMES project was like SISMA an Interreg III B - CADSES project.
It included an Internet Radio network to fulfil the aim that to protect cultural heritage, the best way is to use it, but with the safeguard of public attention. See www.heritageradio.net This meant the establishment of network consisting of six radio stations to promote cultural heritage especially in Eastern Europe. In Volos, the Municipal Radio station did not join and instead a Platform for cultural was created: www.i-politismos.gr It provided the organisational basis for future cultural developments e.g. set-up of three new museums.
Civil Protection
Within SISMA, MIRIAD 21, GRDP and other initiatives, civil protection experiences were made as well by involving citizens in emergency measures. Civil protection has become a tested tool in collaboration with other partners e.g. Red Cross of Greece.
Link: Civil Protection Unit of the European Commission http://ec.europa.eu/environment/civil
European conferences
- Organisation of Fifth Seminar, "Cultural Actions for Europe", Athens 1994
- Myth of the City Conference in Crete: Poets and Planners about Living Conditions in Cities (1995)
- CIED Conference in Leipzig during the German EU Presidency (1999)
President of Poiein kai Prattein
Anna Arvanitaki worked at the Ministry of the Environment in the domain of Urban Planning and there supervised Master Plan Studies for Greek cities (Patras, Larissa, Volos, Ioanna, Iraklion) until 2012. Always she follows developments in urban policies instantly, given the fact that the urban planning system in Greece is heavily government led. Also, due to her involvement with the European dimension of planning (e.g. Council of Europa campaign "to save the rural countryside", scientific coordinator of the Article 10 ERDF TERRA Project LORE, participation in the European Council of Town Planners as national representative, planning expert in European projects like GRDP and SISMA), she has an overview of developments both within urban policy and the between the latter and other related policy areas like: environmental protection, regional development and cohesion, public administration and local government. She is an expert for URBACT.
Coordinator
Hatto Fischer has been focusing more on philosophical, scientific, economic and cultural issues. An indication of his range of activities can be his aim to follow through with a three tier structure of communication: top-down information as to what is happening at EU level; encouraging a bottom-up process with citizens engaged in the European debate to help set the European agenda; and validation of information by independent experts capable of doing studies and verifying knowledge about European affairs. To the latter category belong as well the various position papers in the various fields with Bart Verschaffel leading the way with his paper about the European Union being a fiction, but a necessary one.
- Hatto Fischer, Advisor for the Greens to the Committee on Culture, Education, Sports, Youth and Media of the European Parliament (1999 - 2000)
- Hatto Fischer, Study for the Greens on "Potentiality of an Internet Radio to further the European Debate" (2001 - 2002)
- Civil Society and European Convention for Drafting the EU Constitutional Treaty: Participation
- Set-up of Website of CIED (Cultural Innovation and Economic Development) along with conceptualization of Internet Radio "GO ON".
- Drafting of design for Study of Cultural Co-operation (Interarts / EFAH)
- Contribution to Task Force on 'CREATIVITY' (2007)
- Recognition by the European Commission for Kids' Guernica as innovative and creative project but not funded by Europe (2009)
- Representing Poiein kai Prattein at meetings of the Platform for Intercultural Europe (ongoing)
- Since 1993 involved in the story of European Capitals of Culture project (ongoing)
Cultural Actions
- Train Exhibition together with 'Artists without Frontiers' and Spyros Mercouris (1998). The first train exhibition went only through Greece, but the second one took a route throughout Europe and involved coordination with various train stations in different countries, including Leipzig. At
- Photo Exhibition 'OSMOSIS' together with MEP Alecos Alavanos in European Parliament, Strasbourg, Weimar and Leipzig (1999)
- Athens 2004: Poets and the Olympic Truce
- Olympic Truce for Torino 2006 – own activity together with Peace Waves, financed by the Council of Europe, Feb. 2005 in Torino, Italy to gather Youth from all over the world
- Kids' Guernica 2005 - 2012 and then Kids' Guernica - Guernica Youth 2013 - ongoing
- Dialog with poets around the world has defined the continuity of Touch Stone becoming Poiein kai Prattein (1992 - ongoing) with numerous publications both on the website and elsewhere in journals and anthologies
European Cultural Capital Cities and ECCM Network
- 'Vision and Experiences' conference in Thessaloniki together with Spyros Mercouris, 1998
- Day of Culture, May 2000 together with Spyros Mercouris
- Work on the Archive for the Network of European Cultural Capital Cities in conjunction with the exhibition "20 years of history of Cultural Capital Cities" in Patras 2006 and advisory work for Spyros Mercouris, Honorary President of the ECCM Network together with Heritageradio under the coordination of Jan Brueggemeier.
- Preparing with Spyros Mercouris the General Assembly of the ECCM Network in Brussels, January 2007
- ECCM Symposium "Productivity of Culture" held in Athens, October 2007 in conjunction with Spyros Mercouris and the ECCM Network Kids' Guernica exhibition. Special emphasis of the symposium shall be the verification of the Network of the EU Study on 'Culture and Economy'.
- Contact with University Network of European Capitals of Culture in Sibiu (2007), attendance of Pecs (2010) and Antwerp (2011) conferences with publication by Hatto Fischer about 'Poverty of Experience'
- Advising Sonderborg 2017 (Nov.-Dec. 2010) and Wroclaw 2016 (2011), while engaging Wroclaw and San Sebastian in Kids' Guernica related actions
- Organisation of conference: "Kids' Guernica and European Capitals of Culture: The Cultural Dimension of Peace" in Gent, Feb. 2011
- Organisation of conference: "Can and do make European Capitals of Culture a contribution towards a culture of Sustainability" in Berlin, May 2011
- Attendance of the public consultation about the future of ECoC in Brussels
- Ongoing research work and updating the archive of Poiein kai Prattein about ECoC
- Collaboration with research team Bob Palmer, Greg Richards, Diane Dodd
- Action research project together with Oleg Koefoed, philosopher in Copenhagen
- On board of evaluators for proposals brought forth by researchers for Valletta 2018 engaged in cultural mapping of spaces, venues and cultural resources in 2013
« Practical agenda | International Projects »