Part IV
Slovakia
Stredisko Environmentálnej Osvety 'Bambi' - Center for Environmental Education 'Bambi'
Kosice, 5 February 1996
- PO Box 47
- Budulovska 12
- 045 01 Moldava nad Bodvou
- Slovakia
- Phone: 42 943 3345
The person and her function in the NGO
- Laura Dittel - Coordinator and one of the founders of the Bambicenter;
Country Representative for Slovakia for the Fund for the Development
of the Carpathian Euroregion (FDCE).
The NGO itself
The Environmental Education Center Bambi was established in 1990,
under the district board Kosice-rural of the Slovak Union
of Nature and Landscape Protectors (SZOPK). After one year the
Bambi center became a basic organization, and more independent
from SZOPK. The Bambi center is a member of the network of SZOPK
environmental education centers; but since the coherence of this
network is decreasing the Bambi center is thinking of joining
the Association of Protectors of South-East Carpathy (PCOLA).
The Bambi center was established by 2 teachers and 2 district
officers for environmental issues, together with Mrs. Dittel.
The first focus of the Bambi center was to raise environmental
awareness among business managers, forest- and water policymakers
and governmental employees; after one year the focus switched
to environmental education for children.
Structure
The Bambi Environmental Education Center is a basic organization
of the SZOPK, and works with the standard SZOPK structure. This
means that there is a coordinator for the Center's activities,
that an employee does the practical work in the office and that
the members are active as volunteers for the Center. The Bambi
center works on community level, namely in the community of Moldava
nad Bodvou.
Objective(s) / Goal(s)
The main goal of the Bambi center is to provide environmental
education in primary schools, with programs for both children
and teachers. An additional goal is to secure environmental education
in the regular school curriculum.
Main areas of activity of the Bambicenter
The main areas of activity of the Center are environmental education
and training and collection and dissemination of information.
The Center has several educational projects and also runs a library
and an eco-video store. Nature protection and social-political
activities are less important, but in the case of nature protection,
are done under the framework of the environmental education.
Lobbying activities are undertaken in order to get environmental
education in the regular curriculum and to try to stop the upcoming
'Third Sector Law' from becoming a reality.
Resources
- Human
- One full-time employee works in the Bambicenter office, and about
22 volunteers are actively dealing with projects. Furthermore
one civil servant assists the organization. 12 members pay membership
fees. These members are also volunteers for the Bambicenter.
- Money
- The 1995 budget was approximately 12,000 USD, which was an unusually
large budget for the Bambicenter. This was due to a big grant
for organizing seminars on environmental education. The money
comes from different funding organizations, PHARE, the REC -
local grants and the Environmental Training Program (ETP). The
membership fees are negligible.
- Expertise
- Spoken languages in the office include: Slovak, Hungarian, English,
Russian and Esperanto. The expertise on environmental issues
at the strategical level is considered medium, whereas the expertise
at organizational level is considered high.
- Access to information
- Available tools are phone and computer(s). Because of the coordinator
the Center can use the email connection to the Slovak computer
network. A fax will hopefully be bought in the near future. The
Bambicenter is very successful in getting useful information via
personal contacts with policymakers and for example, the new
NGO in Kosice for environmental journalists.
External Relations and intensity of the contact
All external relations of the Bambicenter are based on cooperation,
but the intensity differs. The contact with the local government
is quite intensive whereas the contact with both national and
international NGOs deals only with information exchange. National
NGOs in addition to cooperating are in a sort of competition for
money, but this is normal and only sharpens the motivation and
proceeding of the NGOs. International contacts with Western NGOs
includes the Wilder Forest Center in Minnesota, Milieukontakt
Oost-Europa and WWF. East-East cooperation has mainly been established
with Hungarian NGOs.
East-East Cooperation
The Bambi Environmental Education Center has several bilateral
contacts with Hungarian NGOs which include, Göncöl,
Greenheart and Tisza Klub. Geographically, the Czech Republic
is far away for joint projects, since the Center only works on
the local level. Fortunately there is nformation exchange with
Czech environmental education centers.
Advantages / Motivation
The main reason for establishment of the contacts with the Hungarian
community was a project done by Laura Dittel herself in 1991.
It was a SZOPK project to help the border regions of the Slovakian
environmental movement to develop. In fact this project wasn't
very successful, since the NGOs on the Slovak side of the border
were too occupied with their own projects. Hungarian groups were
quite eager to cooperate, mainly to support the development of
the Hungarian minority living in South Slovakia. Education materials
were published in both Slovak and Hungarian so both populations
would benefit. Further cooperation between the two communities
needs to be based on the same issue, publishing the materials
in the two languages. It is logical for a NGO in a border area
to cooperate more easily with a neighboring border country than
a NGO in the middle of a non-border country. A big advantage of
cooperation is time savings because of the sharing of information.
For the Bambicenter this means getting the educational materials
in two languages at once, so that they don't have to translate
the material themselves. Finally it should be mentioned that it
is much easier to get funds for East-East cooperation, for example,
from the Partnership for Europe Foundation.
Problems / Obstacles
The main problem of regional NGOs is the lack of capacity; the
groups are small, one person has to do everything, time and money
(especially for traveling) are limited. 1990/1991 was really
a transition period, the NGOs had to fit into a new society and
were concerned with their own survival. The current situation
in Slovakia is problematic, the government is continuing to become
more nationalistic. Only cooperation with Ukraine, Russia and
Poland are in favor. Another threat to the NGO community is the
possible enactment of 'the Third Sector Law'. The treat has
made NGOs become self-occupied and makes cooperation between NGOs
difficult. Nationalism within the NGO community is not a hot
item, but for many people, history and historical claims have
become more and more important. Even in Moldava nad Bodvou where
everybody is bilingual and where there were no problems before,
people have started to blame each other just because the other
is Hungarian or Slovakian. Finally we have to keep in mind that
cooperation is a process, it takes time before people know each
other and when there is no history of cooperation, it is very
difficult to establish cooperation.
Surplus Value / Results of East-East cooperation
Because of the cooperation with Hungarian NGOs the Bambicenter
received environmental education materials in Hungarian. It allowed
them to reach a much bigger population. Now Hungarian teachers
and children are involved in the environmental education program.
The sharing of materials, information and experiences with Hungarian
groups is very good for the development of their own materials
and it helps establish contact within the community of Slovaks
and Hungarians.
Necessary features of a NGO for East-East cooperation
Cooperation needs to be developed among bordering countries and
eventually between the appropriate NGO groups. If governments
and businesses are not cooperating with neighboring countries,
how can NGOs break this habit? The NGO needs qualified people
and adequate funds. In addition it needs to develop its communications
skills. If the first contacts are established, a contact person
dealing with the external relations of the NGO, responsible for
the cooperative activities, is needed. A capable NGO can only
have East-East cooperation when they are located on the same border
area, where common problems have to be solved from both sides
of the border.
Possible reasons for others not to start East-East cooperation
Other NGOs don't have the need for East-East cooperation when
they are working only on the local level and/or far away from
any border(s). Again, the main obstacle is the lack of capacity
of most NGOs.
Future of East-East cooperative behavior of the NGO
The East-East cooperation with Hungarian NGOs will continued to
be developed. The Bambicenter will continue to cooperate with
their partner NGOs, but they are also looking for other Hungarian
partner NGOs in the field of environmental education. The help
of the Hungarian NGOs is needed, but the main problem of the Bambicenter
is to get more capacity and especially more active members.
REC and East-East cooperation
The Bambicenter applied for an Earmarked Grant, but didn't succeed
in getting one. The NGO has had two grants from the REC local
program, so the REC and the REC procedures are well known.
East-East cooperation has to be promoted, but only then when there
is a real and strong need for it for both of the partners. In
such cases the REC should take the role of facilitator. This means
establishing contacts by organizing meetings on a certain topic,
and knowing the activists in the NGO community better. Maybe the
REC has to start with improving the contact with the NGO community,
by becoming closer to people in the 'field'. The REC - Budapest
and also the REC - Local Office should be more active in contacting
the NGO people; so less sitting in the office, more moving through
the country. Personal contact is the keyword for all cooperation,
we have to see each other, to see the office, to know the project
leader and to have trust in the potential partner, before any
cooperation can start, the REC should pay more attention to the
importance of personal contact.
An advantage of the REC Earmarked Grants Program is the large
amount of money they can give a grantee. This means that bigger
and longer lasting projects can be done. And since almost all
East-East cooperative projects will be of this kind, earmarked
grants maybe helpful in promoting East-East cooperation.
REC * PUBLICATIONS * BEYOND BORDERS - SIDE REPORT * SLOVAKIA
