In the last weeks, we were talking a lot with local people about the project, invited people by sending e-mails around, our contacts did they same, we distributed the invitation in the letter boxes, got an article in the regional newspaper and an online article on the local newspaper blog, and 10 people found the way to attend the meeting yesterday evening in La Chapelle de Fitou.

9 local people and a representative from the Communauté Corbieres Mediterranée, an administrative body for a group of cities and villages in the Fitou neighbourhood. The aim of this body is, according to their website, to consult the municipalities and coordinate the realization of projects and legal actions in these townships. A major point of their activities is the development of tourism.
Unfortunately, nobody from the municipality of Fitou attended that meeting, despite their expressed interest in the project.

I gave a short presentation about the project reasons, our motives, the main aims and asked for people's opinions and questions.

The only present representative of an official body questioned the sense of “just another project” for developing tourism as there already exist enough projects, many institutions are involved and a lot is under development. Very soon, we were in a hot discussion about that issue and the other participants pointed out that there is a huge demand of a greater involvement of local inhabitants in the realization of central decisions and also in the creation of new strategies.
In general, they like the idea of a bottom up approach and declared their willingness to work on that project.
With this project we aim to bring people together, to discuss ideas and share experiences, on a regional level as well as on a European level. If we really can realize that, we all will learn a lot, especially about the possibilities and potentials of an open and transparent communication and what it means to be personally responsible for their living environment.