The Kojakovice Project
Strategic tool for community-revitalization and sustainable economic development in South Bohemia
The Kojakovice Project comprises the initial scope of activities funded through the three-year grant from the Rockefeller Brother Fund (2001-2003). The grant was provided as seed money to help establish the Kojakovice Museum and Information Center as public center for our regional development and heritage preservation activities.
The aim of the project was to:
- facilitate and promote community-building activities;
- help develop and realize a strategy for sustainable economic development of the region;
- preserve the material and living cultural heritage of the region;
- preserve the natural heritage and environment of the of the region;
- facilitate re-qualification training and other forms of Adult Education, to help fight unemployment and enable people to use alternative economic opportunities; and
- educate visitors and local people, and in particular children, about the life of ordinary people from this region in the 19th century, complementing the picture of daily life in previous centuries.
When the Society started its activities, the non-profit sector was strongly underdeveloped in this rural region (not counting big towns), even compared with other regions in the Czech Republic. There existed only a few truly full time non-governmental non-profit organizations working in rural areas and wide-approach projects like ours were unknown. The Kojakovice Project helped show the local population and local authorities the impact non-profits can have on regional development and addressing socio-economic and environmental problems on a sustainable basis, preserving cultural and environmental attributes.
Although the Kojakovice Project has formally ended, the Society continues trying to achieve its aims. Some of the project aims, in particular helping to re-develop agricultural activities, where abandoned for the moment as too complicated (joining European Union, new laws, etc) and beyond our capacity.
Other activities like community betterment, fighting unemployment, creating new economic opportunities, and strenghtening the role of Non-Profits in rural regional development continue and are bearing fruit.
The Society is particularly successfully in transnational cultural and educational projects (mainly EU funded) and in developing sustainable tourism activities combined with preserving cultural heritage (Ecomuseum, Greenways).
