Agora Association - First reminiscence center in Romania


	Center for informing and advicing citizens, Calarasi Agora Association and its partner, City Hall in CALARASI, through PHARE Program for the Development of Civil Society, have created a Citizens� Advice Bureau in Calarasi. This kind of public information and counseling service was intended to be a support for people in Calarasi, in order to help them solve various problems by gaining access to relevant information about their rights and obligations. Our Citizen�s Counseling Bureau, located in 1.Mai Blvd., can offer up-to-date legislation and legal proceedings, staff that was specially trained in counseling techniques, management and public relations; the Center also has three counseling rooms and a meeting room, outbuildings, an archive and a data base with direct and indirect beneficiaries. During the 16 month of this PHARE financed project, AGORA Association (together with the City Hall of Calarasi) has correctly and without any discrimination offered information and correct counseling in matters like social assistance, public services, work relationships, property legislation, health, civil rights and duties, protection of the consumer, notary proceedings, child protection, education to a number of 821 citizens. The most required fields for counseling and information have been: work relationships (113 requests), social assistance, civil rights and duties (108 requests), fees and taxes (84 requests). The less requested fields for counseling have been child protection and consumer protection (with only 4 requests). We managed to solve citizen�s problems in 95.24 % of the cases, the other citizens received counseling and directed to the institutions that could help them. The majority of the requests came from people living in urban environments � 76.11%; citizens living in rural environments came less to these Counseling Bureau (20.33 %). The majority of the citizens asking for counseling were older than 50 � 30.24%. Implementing this project also brought a reinforcement of communication between civil society and local authorities; this happened through the good functioning of the partnership between Calarasi Town Hall (for a period of 5 years), the delegation of a person from the Town Hall to work as a counselor in the Citizens� Counseling Bureau and the growing level of understanding from the counseled citizens of the functioning mechanisms of local authorities. During the whole project we noticed the necessity to extend these information and counseling services in rural environments of Calarasi also. Financed by: EU, U.E. Program for civil society development 2000, Calarasi city hall, Agora Association Sum: 32 900 � Duration: jun. 2002 � jul. 2003 Location: Calarasi
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