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Leanid Kalitsenia: It would be great to achieve consolidation of a wider circle of NGO

04.01.2014  |  Society   |  Nadezhda Kalinina, EuroBelarus,  
Leanid Kalitsenia: It would be great to achieve consolidation of a wider circle of NGO

Closer cooperation in problem solving is important for the Belarusan public organizations.

This statement made Leanid Kalitsenia, the head of the NGO Center for Social Innovations, in the talk with the EuroBelarus Information Service.

- There is a lot of work in the public sector, - Leanid Kalitsenia is convinced. – It is hard to boast of achievements and small victories in 2013, while the situation with the civil society of Belarus is not improving. I would be happier about our achievements within some coalitions or campaigns; as until framework of public organizations’ work is not changed for the better, it is hard to take into consideration some isolated, though quite successful actions. Though we have worked productively in a number of directions, such as, for example, civicism, it is only a single spot of success on a national scale.

The head of the NGO Center for Social Innovations believes that although a lot of important work has been done, there is still place for improvement.

- The most important common direction is the Belarusan National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, - shares his view Leanid Kalitsenia. – However, we didn’t manage to achieve considerable progress there; and the split has only widened. I think that we should throw all our efforts to improve the Platform’s activity.

According to Leanid Kalitsenia, next year Center for Social Innovations will continue its work on the problem of Belarusan civicism within the framework of the Association of Life-Long Learning and Enlightenment, The work with the problem of socialization of people with disabilities and with the issues of social economics will also be continued.

- We will continue our cooperation with the Office for the Rights of People with Disabilities, which can be very productive, - continues Leanid Kalitsenia. – We are going to employ innovation there.

- Aspiration for joining of efforts among the organizations we are cooperating within the International Consortium “EuroBelarus” is noticeable. We are also trying to achieve consolidation of a wider circle of NGO, but not hard enough, Leanid Kalitsenia assumes. – Because as long as we are unable to achieve consolidation between the civil society organizations, we can’t be optimistic about mutual trust and development of relations within Belarusan society. 

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