EU PROGRES

FEDES, Children’s Creativity Festival, was successfully held from 5 – 9 November 2012 in Prokuplje, Blace, Kuršumlija and Žitorađa with support from the European Union and the Government of Switzerland through the European Partnership with Municipalities Programme EU PROGRES. Toplica District primary school pupils had five days of competition to display their skills in prose and poetry, painting and sketching, playing, singing and folklore.

Twenty-five South and South West Serbian municipalities have been upgrading their websites to improve their communication with the citizens within the good governance campaign “I Want to… because I Live Here” funded by the European Union and the Government of Switzerland via the European Partnership with Municipalities Programme EU PROGRES. Ivanjica’s website has gone audio to enable blind and visually impaired members of the public to follow the municipal activities. Bojnik, Nova Varoš, Sjenica and Leskovac websites now provide the citizens with the opportunity to directly communicate with the town mayors, while Žitorađa, Tutin, Surdulica and Novi Pazar have published their budgets on their websites. The Nova Varoš website is also running a public opinion poll on the municipality’s investment priorities.

“Plum Days“, the cultural and agricultural event, celebrated two jubilees this year: its tenth anniversary and the record number of visitors. The organisers of the Festival estimate that Blace had 100,000 visitors during four days who enjoyed good pop and folk concerts, as well as plum products. Numerous lectures on modern trends in fruit production and meetings of the producers prove that the organizers think strategically about development of this Toplica municipality. Blace municipality is the home of the highest number of plum trees per inhabitant in Serbia – two million trees of this fruit’s different varieties are planted on some 5,000 acres of land.

High school students and representatives of Student Parliaments in the municipalities of Bujanovac, Kuršumlija and Raška, who took part in the good governance workshops within the campaign “I Want to … because I Live Here” in late May, showed that they understood this topic well. They, however, also noted that they did not have the opportunity to apply the principles of good governance often.