Polish NGO uses diverse approaches to engage youth, address climate change and welcome refugees

One of the more than 70 members of People Powered is Field of Dialogue, a Warsaw-based NGO that works throughout Poland to support the participation of citizens in public life. Here is a lightly edited account of our interview (conducted by Pam Bailey, People Powered communications director) with Mateusz Wojcieszak, the organization’s board chair. 

Why is your organization called Field of Dialogue?

Our main goal is to build dialogue between community leaders, inhabitants and officials, like mayors for example. Why? Because in Poland, we have a problem with public dialogue, due to our Communist history and the track record of our politicians. We have a huge problem with trust.

Our activities can be divided into three types:

• Building community, through local partnerships and cooperation in neighborhoods. A big part of what we mean by dialogue is to make something together. For example, we support schools by helping them map their neighborhoods and establish relations with resident groups and local businesses, thus building trust. This helps prevent conflicts, which often arise in Polish cities in connection to school systems or school buildings, because the students can be disruptive to the neighborhood.

• Implementing participatory processes in cities. We implemented the first participatory budgeting pilot in Warsaw, for example, related to the budget for the cultural center.

• Conducting related social research, for example, on climate and energy transition.

Why have you chosen to focus on dialogue and participatory democracy?

Mateusz Wojcieszak

Our overall goal is to build public participation as part of innovation in democracy. We have a big problem with far-right-wing movements in Poland, with populism and climate denialism.

In Poland right now, we are in a wave of new democracy. In Poland, the space for most people to get involved in politics and policymaking has been only for men, or rich people, or people with academic degrees. We see our job as engaging “normal people” in conversation about public policy, in the neighborhoods, in social organizations, and in the schools.

You place a lot of emphasis on schools in your work. Why?

We believe that if we want to change systematic problems, like lack of active engagement in policymaking by ordinary people, we must work in the schools.

When we think about neighborhoods in Poland, about cities, schools are really important. Not only the institutions themselves, but also the buildings. They have libraries, rooms for workshops, sports halls. We want to open these building to other social groups, elderly people, etc. It's important because schools represent a sort of power. In Poland, schools have the power to make change, because they have public money and infrastructure.

And also, public schools are common to everybody. For people in my age group or in my parents’ age group, public school is a shared experience, although it was unfortunately often a bad one. We want to change that. We want to make schools into a democratic innovation, something exciting for pupils. We also want to make a connection between schoolwork and adults’ work. For example, voting. We know that if pupils have the power to vote for something now, they will be better voters in the future.

A participatory budgeting process in a Warsaw school.

How important is participatory budgeting to your work in schools?

Participatory budgeting is one of our primary activities. Democracy is like a muscle; you have to “use” it to make it strong. But in Poland, only a small number of people turn out in each election, especially the local ones. We have to start teaching about democracy, about voting in our schools. Right now, in our educational system, our pupils have only one occasion to vote, and that’s to choose their student councils. School participatory budgeting is a chance to change that.

In one public school, which is open to children with refugee status and other foreigners, I heard stories from the teachers about their Ukrainian students and parents. Apparently, in Ukraine, it's normal to have to pay something extra to the school, for notebooks, for example. When they did PB, it was the first time that they were the ones to decide something about the school. School participatory budgeting instills values like democracy.

Have you experimented with other types of participatory democracy?

We’ve also tried citizens’ juries and assemblies. We are among three organizations that ran the first citizens’ assembly in Warsaw, on the climate and renewable sources of energy, to advise the city council and mayor of Warsaw. For example, they discussed new standards for buildings.

We’ve only had about six or seven citizens’ assemblies so far, at the local level. It's still something “weird” here, you could say. It was so much work for city officials, and pretty expensive. So, I think citizens’ juries will be more realistic for smaller cities.

We’ve also tried legislative theater, which was a nice change of pace.

A citizens’ jury coordinated by the Field of Dialogue.

What impact has the war in Ukraine had on your work?

This is a unique situation that affects us a lot. Of course, before the war, we had a lot of Ukrainian people, in Warsaw for example. But it was mostly men working in our restaurants, shops and companies. Now, it's something absolutely new, for example for our school system and also for our NGOs.

Currently, there is a huge amount of sympathy and volunteerism. But in a short while, we will have to think about more systematic solutions, for example in education, employment and housing. In Warsaw, we have more than 300,000 Ukrainian refugees. I’ve started to hear a lot of angry stories, aimed mostly at our central government, because it's time to take big steps and make big policies and answer the big questions coming to our minds. Right now, we have a lot of new NGOs and groups of volunteers who are here helping the refugees. But you can’t leave housing, education, etc. to volunteers – not when it could extend one, two, three years. And all those new people will leave at some point.

And for my organization, the question is, when and how should they be involved in participatory budgeting or public consultation? Of course, this is not a question for now. These people have just fled from a war. But in a year, for example, or two years, if the refugees become temporary residents, it will be a question about how we can conduct these processes, how we can more permanently welcome these new people to our cities. So, we are thinking about how to adapt our participatory budgeting process and prepare good materials, for example in their local language. And we’re inviting Ukrainian organizations to help us plan.

How can People Powered and our members help?

The People Powered network has a lot of stories and good practices to share, from Asia, Africa and also the United States, near the border with Mexico – areas that have been in similar situations. Right now, we have a lot of questions: For example, is now the right time for participation? We need some help from our friends from international organizations and other countries to help us see the big picture.

The influx of refugees comes on the heels of the COVID pandemic. What has been the overall impact on participatory democracy in Poland?

For most of our politicians and other decision-makers, the people with the budgets here in Poland, participation has always been something “additional.” We know, with our intuition, that it’s not something additional, that it can help in times of crisis, whether it be related to the climate or immigration. But we don't have experience in using participation in such occasions.

The refugees are the second crisis in the participatory world here. COVID was the other. For example, COVID brought about a change in law in our country, which allows participatory budgeting to be halted because of COVID. As a result, in many municipalities in Poland, we now don't have participatory budgeting because of this.

And a third crisis is coming, in the cost of living. Now more than ever, the People Powered network needs to pull together and support each other.