Contacts and international cooperation provide excellent opportunities to exchange good practices. Maintaining relations with partner cities allows achieving goals related to cultural, economic and educational exchanges, in all respects, information and building civil society.
2017 was a breakthrough year for the Rawicz Commune in international cooperation. In 2016, the Municipal Office of the Rawicz Commune implemented a project called "Rawicz - urbs semper aperta" in response to a competition from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of "Supporting the local government and civic dimension of Polish foreign policy 2016". Its main purpose was to trigger a discussion on foreign cooperation between local governments and to mark the interest of the Rawicz Commune in this topic. Latin reference to the promotional slogan of the Rawicz commune used as the title of the project ("The city is always open") - combined all planned activities - just like Latin connects many languages, and thus countries.
The result of many conversations, meetings, initiatives of local government authorities and office staff was the signing of two letters of intent in 2017 on cooperation. For the first time in its history, the Rawicz self-government established foreign cooperation, and city authorities signed official lists - first with the Strakonites in the Czech Republic, then with Attendorn in Germany.
The cities established initiative groups made up of representatives of various groups of residents to implement the most important cooperation objectives. One of the Rawicz schools began to operate as a Circle of Young Friends of the City Partnership. The Association of International Initiatives Rawicz.pl was also established (in 2018), which set itself such goals as European integration, stimulating public awareness by organizing international initiatives, creating international projects, implementing the idea of economic and social cohesion of the European Union, meeting the needs of children, youth and adults in the field of culture, including physical culture, education, social policy and health promotion and protection. Over the past years, the Promotion and Social Communication Office of the Rawicz Municipal Office has coordinated several transnational projects. In 2018, actions were also taken to establish contacts with eastern neighbors. In 2019, at the invitation of the city authorities of Głębokie in Belarus, a delegation from the Rawicz commune took part in one of the largest festivals in the Vitebsk region - the Cherry Festival. On July 26, 2019, the mayors of Rawicz and Głęboki signed a letter of intent on cooperation between cities.
On June 1, 2019, Rawicz - by concluding an agreement with German Attendorn - officially joined the group of Polish cities cooperating with foreign self-governments. A full-fledged document on cooperation was signed in the presence of initiative groups, representatives of residents gathered in local associations, local government activists and the Consul General of Germany.
The Rawicz commune - in cooperation with the initiative group, associations and representatives of partner cities - has defined the most important areas of cooperation with partner cities:
- management / work of local governments,
- strategic planning and urban infrastructure,
- promotion of tourist, economic and business activities,
- social participation,
- education, sport, culture,
- social policy, health care, senior policy,
- cooperation between youth groups,
- cooperation of various groups of residents,
- cooperation of various religious groups,
- exchange between public institutions and associations (NGOs).
The Promotion and Social Communication Office is responsible for the implementation of international cooperation activities.
Contact:
e-mail: promocja@rawicz.eu
tel. +48 65 546 76 71