Description:

(a)total duration in months; 12 months

(b)place of implementation and geographical area covered by the project?

The Atzalynas club in Pavilnys, a rural neighborhood of Vilnius; Independent thinkers located throughout Lithuania, including the countryside; Independent thinkers throughout Europe, especially Austria; Independent thinkers in the South, possibly in Kenya, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Ecuador.

(c)what are the project's objectives in terms of support for capacity building?

The project seeks to build on the Atzalynas club's role as headquarters for the Minciu Sodas online laboratory, and establish the club as a national and global centre for video bridges by providing equipment, developing activities and fostering skills to connect with a mobile unit that will serve the Lithuanian countryside and yield experience in servicing video bridges.

(d)what are the project's objectives in terms of raising public awareness of development issues?

The video bridges in Lithuania will serve as practice for such bridges with partners in the developing world. The sessions will be bolstered by the Minciu Sodas online discussion groups in Lithuanian and English, by publication through an online database, and by a newsletter to reach Lithuanian independent thinkers who lack Internet access. The goal is to make our colleagues in the South more visible and accessible to our local and online communities. We expect to find new partners in the South who have the needed technology and, where possible, might help us connect with independent thinkers we already know.

(e)which target groups and actors are involved in the project's capacity-building activities, on the one hand, and in its development issues awareness-raising activities, on the other?

Independent thinkers are often marginalized for ìthinking differentlyî. The capacity building involves leaders of Atzalynas (including Armenian, Jewish and Tamil minorities) and also independent thinkers in the countryside. The international awareness-receiving includes connections with independent thinkers spread out through Europe and also the South.

(f)For the support project(s) (see point 2.1.3 of the Guidelines), please indicate clearly which are the target groups, as well as the names of the partner organisations involved;

Independent thinkers in the Minciu Sodas laboratory and Open Leader network who are working on ideas that might change the world, especially those in Lithuania, so that they would be uplifted by the fact that their work may be relevant to the broader world, but especially the disadvantaged in the South; but also colleagues throughout Europe; and especially colleagues in the developing world.

(g)what is the content of the project (in terms of development themes, competencies to be acquired, methodologies to be developed, etc)?

Themes will depend on what the independent thinkers wish to learn, and are expected to include the building and organising of ecovillages, the organising of global teams for open economy, the design of community currencies, the study of conceptual frameworks, the adaptation of new or traditional crafts, open source software programming, and leadership development. We will place special emphasis on the development of an independent thinker through their continuously clarifying their ìkey conceptî and ìinvestigatory questionî. We will gain experience in the technical, social and pedagogical sides of video bridges. The lessons learned and the video sessions will be published online.

(h)what methodology will be used and how will target groups participate in the project?

Independent thinkers will be identified based on their ability to state their ìkey conceptî which they care most deeply about, and the ìinvestigatory questionî which they don't know the answer to, but intend to answer. Video bridges will be organized around the question which an independent thinker wishes to explore and the related subjects which they wish to learn or experience which they wish to gain. Others will be invited to participate on either side of the video bridge.

(i)what activities will be implemented in order to achieve the project's aims and what means will be used (staff, equipment etc.)?

Video sessions will be organised by the Minciu Sodas laboratory with teams drawn especially from the leadership of the Atzalynas club. Each team will include an organizer, a technician, a publisher, a translator and an expert (often a utopian visionary) who will coach the independent thinker on the subject of their choice. In Lithuania, the sessions will typically connect the Atzalynas club with a mobile unit, each typically having a laptop, video projector and video camera linked together. Video bridges with other countries will be made with those centres which have the needed equipment.

(j)what qualitative and quantitative results are expected, in terms of capacity building and awareness raising?

The video bridges will strengthen the Atzalynas club's role in the local community (3,000 people) and expand residents' perceptions of what is possible working together within the neighborhood (and the technology can be used for other activities including local entertainment and global business networking). They will help double the size of the Minciu Sodas laboratory online discussion groups (currently 300 people in Lithuania and 1,000 people worldwide). The website for the video sessions and database for related expertise will be visited by about 10,000 people. The materials will belong to the Public Domain which will encourage further distribution. We will inform makers of related television and radio programs in Lithuania and it is possible that an audience of 300,000 people will learn of this work.

(k)what concrete results are expected (for example, number of courses, of persons trained, publications and other products)? Please give precise details and quantify the results expected as far as possible;

We will organise 12 video sessions, of which 6 will be within Lithuania, and 6 will be with colleagues in Europe and the South. Each session will serve a mature independent thinker, but we expect on average an additional 5 to 10 people on either side of the bridge, so that about 100 to 200 people will have participated. They will receive a newsletter by email or post. The web publisher and translator will document what the organisers , technicians, subject expert and independent thinker learned at each event, and this experience will be available online in a custom wiki that others can contribute to as well.

(l) where applicable, who will be the ultimate owner of equipment acquired with the EU grant?

Liaudies krybos klubas Atalynas will own the unit based at the club, and the Minciu Sodas laboratory will own the mobile unit.