We would like to take an opportunity to introduce ourselves and share our vision and experiences with you. “Danube-Networkers for Europe e. V. (DANET)” is a European not-for-profit association of educational organisations, dealing with and promoting education and scientific research as well as exchange and cooperation in the following areas: learning and education in later life, social participation, cooperation and dialogue of generations- in Europe and particularly in the Danube region.
This network has been existing since 2008; as an Association it was formally founded in March 2014. President of the association is Carmen Stadelhofer, second Chairwomen is Dusana Findeisen (Slovenian U3D, Ljubljana/Slovenia), treasurer is Markus Marquard (ZAWiW, University Ulm, Ulm/Germany) association’s secretary is Ana Zlibut (Writers League, Timisoara/Romania). The Network has been successfully implementing different international projects along the Danube since 2008 and has many outstanding results achieved. For more information please visit: http://www.danube-networkers.eu/.
DANET activities are spread on three levels: policy – engagement of civil society representatives in the policy making processes; structural– strengthening organizations and institutions through capacity building; individual–establishment of interactions between citizens through different projects.
On the policy level we strive to motivate and engage civil society representatives to participate actively in policy making processes on national and international level. For this reason we are now focusing on the Participation Day that will be held on 28. October 2015 in Ulm in the frame of the Annual Forum of the EUSDR and will provide the possibility to civil society representatives to raise particularly important and specific topics.
DANET recognizes capacity building as an effective instrument to enhance the capabilities and effectiveness of civil society organizations and institutions. Our recent project demonstrates very clearly how this works – we invited almost 50 representatives from the Danube region to our qualification training in December 2014. They initiated and developed several project ideas, 6 of them have already been submitted for a grant. More about workshop: http://danet.gemeinsamlernen.de/.
Last but not least, our fundamental goal is related to the work with citizens – how to bring the people together and provide the possibilities for cooperation. A way how to achieve it shows our project: “The Wanted Danube”. For more information, please visit:http://www.thewanteddanube.eu/project.