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synAthina is an online and offline public platform that brings together active citizens and City government to co-create solutions for the city’s pressing challenge. Through the development of digital tools but also using offline practices and methods it brings forward the voices of Athens community groups, connects them with Athens City Hall and works with them to develop a range of urban and social innovation prototypes that contribute to the policy making process of the municipality.
During the decade of austerity, there was a phenomenon in Athens of city collectives, various grassroots initiatives and citizens' groups taking actions for the urgent challenges of the city and everyday life. synAthina was born from the need to channel this collaborative energy to solve urban problems and ignite systemic changes in the city government towards more inclusive decision-making processes. Therefore, the aim was to create a structured system that would enable the city government, active citizens, and other stakeholders of the city to address the needs and challenges of their urban environment.
SynAthina has developed a toolbox for a responsive digital crowd-sourcing platform where citizens can place their public initiatives online. This creates a dynamic digital archive of collaborative actions in the city, where the municipality and city services can see the different actions that citizens initiate for their neighbourhoods. It uses participatory practices such as open calls, collaborative workshops and capacity-building, place-making strategies. Together with the municipality of Athens synAthina designs urban and social innovation prototypes based on co-creation methods with the aim of increasing the city's capacity in policy-making and bringing about systemic changes in the way government runs the city. Projects that evolved from this had aims such as reactivating vacant public rental properties or removing graffiti on the surfaces of buildings in Athens' streets. One of the flagship activities of their most recent project “Curing the limbo” is "CoAthens", a model of social integration for migrants and refugees living in Athens who have asylum. Together they develop actions such as pop-up kitchens, football tournaments or music communities that improve Athens' neighbourhood and respond to the city's needs.
Since its beginning synAthina has created a large network of over 450 community groups, which participated online in more than 4000 activities. This large number of groups and activities shows a successful collaboration of citizen groups and the municipality.
Mr. Haris Biskos
cbiskos@gmail.com
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