Part III
Poland

Fundacja Olawy i Nysy Klodzkiej - Olawa and Nysa Klodzka Rivers Foundation

Wroclaw, 17 January 1996

ul. Bialoskornicza 26

50-134 Wroclaw

Poland

Phone: 48 71 445 948

Fax: 48 71 343 0849

The persons and their function in the NGO

Mr. Marek Krukowski - Volunteer

Mr. Darek Bialek - Vice President

The NGO itself

The Olawa and Nysa Klodzka Rivers Foundation was established and registered as a NGO in 1991. The main reason for establishment was the bad quality of the water in the rivers Olawa and Nysa Klodzka. These rivers are used for drinking water, therefore the water quality should be of the highest quality standards, but this is far from the case. The bad situation in the rivers has been known since the mid 80's, but it was impossible to do anything to press the government towards cleaning up the water. Mr. Radoslaw Gawlik, a member of Parliament since 1989, was the founder of the NGO.

Structure

The foundation consists of a Board of Directors, made up of 6 persons, of which Mr. Gawlik is the head. The daily-life management of the NGO is completed by employees and volunteers working in the office and on the projects. An honor board exists for people with 'big names', like majors, who did something special for the NGO or who want to help the group by giving their name. The foundation is active on the country and the community level, almost all activities are focused in the basin areas of the Olawa and Nysa Klodzka rivers.

Objective(s) / Goal(s)

Objectives of the Olawa and Nysa Klodzka rivers foundation are to:

Monitor waste water disposal for local communities, by the Polish and Czech environmental group;
Agree the formation of animal caste utilization by Polish, Czech and German scientists;
Operate educational seminars in schools and colleges, awareness events and audio-visual programming for public meetings and television;
Initiate the 'Park and Ride' and 'Bicycles Only' ideas for those who visit our crowded city centers;
Construct ecological, 'root type' wastewater treatment plants in the Olawa and Nysa Klodzka rivers basin;
Reforest areas in the basin which are being devastated by acid rain;
Repair local ecosystems and wetlands, in order to improve the river water quality by natural means.

Main areas of activity of Olawa and Nysa Klodzka rivers foundation

Collection and dissemination of information, connected with water and ecosystem monitoring and environmental education are the main areas of activity for the foundation. These activities are geographically bound to the Olawa and Nysa Klodzka rivers basin. Nature protection and demonstration projects are done especially for wetlands and in the case of the 'root' wastewater installations, connected with alternative technology development and design. In the city of Wroclaw the bicycle promotion action and earthday activities have to be mentioned as important activities. The foundation spreads a quarterly newspaper and has some of its own publications, like a booklet on PCB (ab)use.

Resources

Human: Three paid employees work for the NGO, together with three contractors: a fund-raiser, an editor of the newspaper and a computer system development expert. Besides these people at least three volunteers are regularly involved, while depending on the project, more volunteers can be mobilized. The foundation does not work with a membership system.
Money: The budget for 1996 is approximately 40,000 USD, but this amount depends on the amount and the kind of projects that will be funded. The money comes from funds from municipalities, businesses and funding organizations like Global Environmental Facilities (GEF) and the REC. The sponsoring businesses are factories in and around Wroclaw. The organizations activities, like selling its expertise also brings in some money.
Expertise: Spoken languages in the office are Polish, English, Russian, Croatian and Czech. The expertise on environmental issues is considered medium, while the expertise on organizational and strategical level is considered quite high, since everything is running well in the foundation.
Access to information: Phone, fax and computer(s) are available in the office, e-mail access will be available in the near future. The contacts with key persons in national policy making are good, because of the foundations connections with key politicians. The local authorities are beginning to accept the NGO more and consider the foundation a good partner. The contacts with the local press are very good.

External Relations and intensity of the contact

The external relations of the Olawa and Nysa Klodzka Foundation are based on cooperation. They have a highly intensive cooperation with the health and environment department. The contacts with environmental businesses are also highly intensive and based on cooperation, for example within the Polish Forum for Industrial Lobby on the ISO 14000 rule for cleaner production. With other Polish (regional) NGOs they cooperate or coexist in a situation of competition. The latter is the case with the PKE branch in Wroclaw. The cooperative contacts are not that intensive and mostly within the eco-information network. Some low intensive contacts exist with Western NGOs, while contacts with Eastern NGOs are rare.

East-East Cooperation

The East-East cooperation of the foundation is based on cooperation with regional and municipal authorities on the other side of the border in the Czech Republic. This cooperation exists because the rivers Olawa and Nysa Klodzka cross the borders and in the Czech part of the river basin, there were no environmental NGOs dealing with the water quality of these rivers. The cooperation is very good with the municipality of Bromov and with the authorities of the Bromovsko nature conservation area. Cooperation has existed since 1992, when a big river project of Nysa Klodzka started. Cooperation is still ongoing, but on other projects, like bike paths crossing the border and the installation of alternative waste water treatment plants at the border of the Czech Republic and Poland.

Advantages / Motivation

The main motivation is the transboundary nature of the river basin of the rivers Olawa and Nysa Klodzka. Since pollution does not stop at the borders, it is necessary to cooperate. The choice of cooperating with local authorities instead of NGOs was made because there were no well developed NGOs in that geographical area in 1992 and the Czech authorities would not give much information to NGOs, so it was more useful to cooperate directly with local authorities. The ability to get more money for international and/or bigger projects may also be an advantage of running East-East cooperative projects.

Problems / Obstacles

A big problem was and is to find a partner NGO in the special geographical area where you are dealing with. There is a lack of information about possible partners and about what's going on in the other side of the border. Furthermore there's a lack of mutual interest. NGOs are much too focused on their own organization and their own problems that they just don't see that the nature of most environmental problems is transboundary. Unique for CEE is the history of very strict borders, for 45 years, a strict border line was kept between Poland and Czechoslovakia, so it takes time to get used to the possibility of transboundary contacts. An independent promoter of East-East cooperation is missing and finally, the existence of stereotypes about Czech (and other!) people still exist. This is not really nationalism, but these stereotypes have a negative effect on cooperation and mutual trust.

Surplus Value / Results of East-East cooperation

There is a lot of value in East-East cooperation. Primarily in solving the common problems at both sides of the border, but additionally in breaking down the existing stereotypes about each other and finally aiding in the exchange of experience and information so that groups on both sides of the border can grow stronger.

Necessary features of a NGO for East-East cooperation

NGOs need to see the transboundary nature of environmental problems and need to accept that that they have to cooperate in order to solve common problems. An independent promoter who travels around and who knows a lot about the NGO community in several neighboring countries would be helpful to bring together possible partners. Conferences and workshops will also help NGOs get to know each other personally.

Possible reasons for others not to start East-East cooperation

These NGOs will not deal with border issues. Or they are too busy with their own, organizational, problems, too busy just surviving. International cooperation is extra work and they are already busy enough with their own jobs.

Future of East-East cooperative behavior of the NGO

The Olawa and Nysa Klodzka Rivers Foundation wants to keep the contact with the Czech municipalities. Furthermore they have no idea if and how East-East cooperation for the NGO will develop.

REC and East-East cooperation

The Olawa and Nysa Klodzka Rivers Foundation got a big REC grant under the old grants program, before 1994 prior to when the Earmarked Grants Program was established. Later, when they applied for an Earmarked Grant, it was not awarded. The REC should promote East-East cooperation, but the REC should not be the only one to do so. Promotion can be done by improving the quality of the contacts among NGOs in CEE, and this is possible through workshops on special international issues, where people of the NGOs can get to know each other personally. The establishing of an ecological information network for NGOs throughout the CEE region will also help. Finally organizing workshops and/or scholarships for improving the knowledge of NGO people on ecological, organizational and strategical level, as well as the skills needed for East-East cooperation will enable cooperation in the future.

REC * PUBLICATIONS * BEYOND BORDERS - SIDE REPORT * POLAND

Part III Poland