The First Year of UrbCitizenPower: Braga’s Perspective
The first year of the Project was a year of learning — learning on many fronts.
We learned to get closer to our partners and understand their unique characteristics. Through a deeper familiarity with the teams involved, the networked way of working was strengthened.
We gained a deeper understanding of the cities and their political instruments. Over this past year, truly getting to know the cities and their profiles—what makes them unique but also, importantly, what brings them together — proved crucial in enabling us to work more productively.
This learning ensured that the political instruments each city brought for analysis were integrated and understood more thoroughly in relation to the city and the challenges it faces, acknowledging that many of these challenges are shared across this global world.
Another aspect of our learning concerns stakeholders: recognizing the importance of getting to know each of them more closely, sharing our ambitions with them, and witnessing their increasing familiarity and engagement with our political instrument. Discussing possibilities, uncertainties, and the future with them has been one of the most stimulating activities.
Next April, we will meet again for another work session, which we anticipate will be highly productive.
Finally, one of the greatest lessons and positive outcomes of this first year was organizing our first thematic working group “Public spaces and Creativity “and the first the Urban Living Lab of the project in Braga, “Empowering Citizens: Technology, Culture, and Creativity as tools for participatory Urban decision making.” The entire process—from building the agenda to discussing with our project partners, involving local partners, and producing content and materials — was challenging and very constructive. Having our partners join us and allowing local stakeholders, politicians, and guests to discuss and reflect on our political instrument together was both motivating and gave us a great deal of hope.