/ PROGRAMS
COMM'ON develops a number of international and local projects that have a social innovation & sustainable development base.
All our programs follow a spiral logic that goes from the MICRO (what is the need?) to the MACRO (what harvest did we have?) to the META (how do we use the knowledge?)
Learn about our programmes:
TANDEM EUROPE
Tandem Europe - Social Innovation represents one edition of the Tandem program family.
It is tailor-made for cultural initiatives that work on creative solutions that make social innovation possible throughout Europe.
Tandem Europe is a one-year long learning and doing program that allows cultural initiatives to kick-start long-term collaboration on a European level. It offers participants a working placement with a partner abroad and engages their organizations in a joint social innovation or strategic development project of their own choice.
Up to 26 cultural pioneers accumulate international know-how while realizing one of up to 13 Tandem pilot projects that serve as prototypes for future tactical collaborations. Obtaining new insights from all over Europe strengthens participants’ impact locally and increases their operational and financial resilience.
The program stimulates strategic thinking in organizational renewal processes, helps to create and sustain culturally innovative effects across sectors, disciplines and borders and explores creative and collaborative solutions for contemporary challenges in our societies.
The program builds on a strategic partnership between the Tandem core partners ECF (Netherlands) and MitOst (Germany), 4iS (Portugal), COMM’ON (Greece), Ideas Factory (Bulgaria) and foundations from Italy (Fondazione Cariplo), Greece (Stavros Niarchos Foundation) and Germany (Robert Bosch Stiftung).
t.e. ROUND III
Tandem Europe III (2019-20) focus was on creative work that addresses burning contemporary issues in our European societies, especially from those urban and rural communities that often have to tackle their local challenges outside mainstream public attention.
The call was addressed to civil society actors, private and public institutions and administration that work across a variety of urban or rural areas and local contexts all over Europe.
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325 applications from 38 countries of the European Council
34 participating organizations from 22 countries
13 Tandem collaborations & projects
t.e. ROUND II
Tandem Europe II (2017-18) focus was on culture and social innovation through cross-sector collaboration. The interest of this second round was in exploring the topics of commons, urban and rural regeneration.
The call was addressed to civil society actors as well as public institutions and administration that are not primarily working in the field of arts and culture but want to participate in a cross border learning collaboration that will work in the field of social innovation.
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136 applications from 25 EU & Western Balkans countries
38 participating organizations from 16 countries
12 Tandem collaborations & projects
“What about the future?“
Branka Bajić from Theater Project Objective Drama - POD Theater in Belgrade brings us a story from her TE journey with Malou Lintmeijer from ZID Theater in Amsterdam. Their partnership has even seen a new name born: BraLou! They share the importance of human connections and understanding in building projects and shaping a better future together.
“The End is a Real Beginning:
a Letter for Tandem”
Vasilena Radeva from Panic Button Theatre in Sofia, has written us a poignant letter to share her experience of being part of the second round of the program. Read her personal reflections on a busy year of being in Tandem, with all its ups and downs.
TOOLS FOR CITIZENS
Tools for Citizens program was built to support civil society identify assets and needs gained by action field work of civil society actors and facilitate the process of translating this knowledge into easy and accessible tools, methods and work- shops that will help community groups, organizations and institutions globally to cover organizational and functional needs.
TFC was inspired by communities in crisis and its Toolbox was co-created with the input of civil society actors from Turkey in 2017 and Greece in 2018.
All the tools, methods and workshops that were produced are online, accessible to download and use by any civil society actor from anywhere in the world, available in English, Greek and Turkish. As more civil society actors want to engage and support communities in their local areas, the Toolbox will be available in French, Ukrainian and Russian the following months.
The program was developed within the cooperation of MitOst (Germany), Anadolu Kültür (Turkey), Socius (Germany), COMM’ON (Greece) and AoHAthina (Greece) with the consultancy of Laden Yurttagüler and Yörük Kurtaran (Turkey), the contribution of HIGGS (Greece) and Impact Hub Athens (Greece) and the support of Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany).
TFC Toolbox supports civil society actors, community groups, organizations, institutions and foundations to identify and address organizational and functional needs by providing easy and accessible DIY tools, methods and workshops which were co-developed by Civil Society for Civil Society.
13
predesigned
workshops
(linked to thematic areas)
the toolbox
Since 2017, we worked together with Civil Society representatives from Turkey and Greece in order to co-create the content of the Toolbox. We collected and developed tools, methods and workshops, covering 13 different thematic areas. In 2019, COMM’ON led the process of translating and contextualizing the Toolbox to the greek context, making it available for the Greek community.
The overall content includes:
59
method
cards
(with step by step process)
46
background
papers
(theoretical models)
27
worksheets
(exercises & templates)
SMALL COMMUNITIES
Small Communities program that aims to support, empower, engage and connect small or/and isolated communities in rural areas of Greece.
Small Communities is an ongoing local empowerement program designed by COMM’ON focusing on the rich insight emerging from small scale peripheral communities around Greece.
The aim is to support the active civil society all around Greece by working with small municipalities and civil society actors in order to bring innova- tive ideas, solutions and activities into action.
As needs can be defined as the gap between what is and what should or could be, every new project of Small Communities starts by focusing on the individual needs and characteristics of each community. The aim of the program is to build strong and long-term bonds and collaborations with different local stakeholders that can insure the sustainability of our work with each community throughout the years.
*The program focuses on small communities [as they are described in the 3852/2010 law of Cleisthenes (municipality categorization)] and active groups or teams of civil society actors in the periphery of Greece.
