From 24 to 26 October 2011, three final workshops were held with the cultural actors of Tivat, Herceg Novi and Kotor. The aim of these workshops was the recognition of priority projects for the purposes of preparing Local Programmes for the Development of Culture 2011-15.

On Tuesday, 25 October 2011, in the Municipality of Herceg Novi, the Workshop for preparation of draft projects was held for the representatives of cultural sector (mainly from the municipalities of Kotor, Tivat and Herceg Novi). The workshop was held by Mr. Predrag Cvetičanin, who has an extensive experience in project management in culture sector. In focus group discussions held within the preparation process of Local Programmes for the Development of Culture in the Municipalities of Kotor, Tivat and Herceg Novi 2011-15, particular cultural actors expressed the need for a workshop of this type, and thus we decided to organize the basic training for acquiring the elementary knowledge on project drafting.

WE INVITE YOU to join in the mapping of public spaces in Boka Kotorska. The mapping was initiated by the team of our organization in May 2011, as part of the SOSTENUTO project. In addition, the mapping contributes to the creation of the database for drafting the Local Programmes for the Development of Culture 2011-15 in the municipalities of Kotor, Tivat and Herceg Novi. Some 170 locations have been identified so far, which are more or less used or are neglected. Often these locations could be better valorised as public spaces.

The list of public spaces with processed forms for each recognized location on the territory of Kotor, Tivat and Herceg Novi municipalities can be found at www.strategija.bokabay.info. There you can also view the CATALOGUE and MAP OF PUBLIC SPACES IN BOKA. Our map and catalogue of available spaces are not final. If you have an idea which locations can be added to the map of public spaces please contact us, regardless of whether you belong to the professional or general public.

Establishing a proactive, responsible citizenry and fostering citizens’ participation in European
policy-making is easiest activated on local level. Policies developed and implemented on local level concern the immediate personal living environments of European citizens. Belonging to Europe, as well as developing a certain ‘personal ownership’ of the European Union as common polity of its citizens has to start first and foremost close to our hearts and minds – hence on a local decision-making level. This implies that political decisions made on EU level and European values endorsed across the continent ideally also have to permeate local cultural policies. In this book, two renown experts, Jordi Pascual i Ruiz and Sanjin Dragojević explore the conceptual framework and the theories behind citizen participation in local cultural policy development and the mechanisms of how participation can be realised on the city level.

Expeditio has been implementing the project Sostenuto for two years now, through the MED programme of the EU, with the partners from France, Italy, Slovenia and Spain. This is a big project which involves different activities in the area of culture, with a particular focus on the relation between the culture and social and economic aspects of development. In Montenegro, Expeditio, among others, cooperates with the municipalities of Kotor, Tivat and Herceg Novi on the preparation of local 2011-2015 programmes for the development of culture. One of the activities of this process is the mapping of public spaces which could be better used i.e. become the spaces of public interest. Mapping is concurrently carried out in the municipalities of Kotor, Tivat and Herceg Novi. About 170 locations have been mapped so far.

Summer school "Europe and Culture in Debate" (31st August, 1st and 2nd September 2011) will be held in Paris and organised by Relais Culture Europe in the frame of the project SOSTENUTO, Thinking culture as a factor of economic and social innovation.

The European Union and its Member States are defining currently the political strategic and budgetary priorities for the next ten years. These negotiations are carried out in a context of multiple crises making difficult to see clearly: How to take into account the worldwide interactions? Which could be our options? In the middle of which challenges could we place culture? More than multiplying the questions and letting think to easy answers, it appears necessary to open the public debate, to exchange ideas. For the first edition of this summer school, we have then opted to open very widely the fields of perspective, i.e. to raise the cultural question in Europe in reference to changes in the world.

Expeditio representative participated in the Tunis Exchange Forum – Building Plural and Democratic Societies, which took place in Tunisia, on 23-26 June 2011. ·The Exchange Forum was organized by the Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF), Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, in partnership with the Foundation for the Future and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sweden and, in close collaboration with the Tunisian Network and the Club Unesco Bardo.