This case study describes an initiative of community members in small village Crevarska strana in the municipality of Gvozd, an area of special state concern due to severe war damages in the nineties. A village was isolated from the nearest town Gvozd, and since inhabitants of the village do not have cars, they had to walk additional seven kilometers to the first bus station and get the bus to the town to work, school, administration offices. Joint community project initiated by local Citizens Advisory Council and supported by local authorities and international donors resolved the problem and a building action again connected village and city.

Background
Village Crevarska strana is one of 14 villages in the Municipality of Gvozd. Gvozd is situated in the County of Karlovac, the most important County linking Europe with Croatian coast.
Gvozd is the smallest municipality in which CCI is active. It inhabits approximately 4,500.00 people. An average citizen of Gvozd municipality is low informed about the life in the community-there is no local newspapers, no radio stations. Majority of population do not even have the car, therefore population is very dependent on the local transportation. Local bus goes through the region 2-3 times a day and reaching only the main, County road without accessing villages whatsoever.
Center for Civil Initiatives assisted Gvozd municipality and community members in formation of a Citizens Advisory Council (CAC), an informal body of citizens which represent community members in dealing with local authorities. There are 9-11 members of CAC, they are openly elected through a long-lasting democratic and public procedure and all of them are respected in their communities. After few months of being active in entire municipality, CAC members learned about the case of a bridge in the village Crevarska strana. Crevarska strana is one of the largest villages in Gvozd municipality and it is connected with the County road that leads to the town by the local wooden bridge. It takes 3 km by walk to the town if someone use the bridge. Unfortunately, bridge was destroyed partially in the war, and then completely destroyed by severe flood that happened in this region a year ago. Walking around the village takes community members 7 kilometers more which gets us to 10 kilometers on foot to the first road where citizens wait for the bus to take them to the workplace, official offices, school and similar.
About the organization
For detailed information about the Center for Civil Initiatives, visit www.cci.hr
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Concept
Problem of destroyed homes, community centers, buildings of authorities, bridges exist in
Croatia in all war destroyed areas. In areas of special state concern that most of the war thorn areas became, the state and international organizations work hard in trying to resolve the issue of rebuilding homes of all war returnees. Many homes were rebuilt, official buidlings were put in function and most of the roads were fixed. Fixing of electricity and water supply system went slowlier, but it is also quite well resolved in recent two years. Problems that remain in small communities like this village Crevarska strana could be resolved by motivated and active community members.
Croatian rural communities were before the war known of the conecpt: «neighbors' help». It was more important to be good with the neighbor then to keep contacts with arelative who is physically distant. The war changed this mentality, an isolation between community members are present everywhere, among different ethnic groups, but among the same ethnic background as well.
CCI's work in rural communities involves activities of community development and greater participation of citizens in the life of their communities, therefore CCI assisted in formation of
Citizens Advisory Council whose members identified a problem of destroyed wooden bridge in Crevarska strana. CCI's concept of work is that community members conduct needs assesment and then prioritize the assessed needs. According to the prioritization CAC then suggest to the local authorities implementation of community projects.

Objective
To increase level of participation of citizens in resolving issues of infrastructure in their communities.
Methodology
For the reconstruction of bridge a structured action plan was needed, representative of the
Village Board together with CCI community organizer and CAC respresentative created an action plan that consisted of the following activities:
create a project design and approximate budget of the building of the new bridge
compose a project proposal based on a project design
submit project proposal to available donors-local and international
organize implementation of the project: «building the bridge» - with community volunteers- A Volunteer task Force
organize opening of the bridge with officials, donors and media
The methodology that CCI used in this case study is a typical methodology of a modern social work in which community organizer/social worker do not work «for» communities, but rather assist communities in a way that work together «with» community. Modeling and replication of successfull actions in new circumstances and new communities are also methods that CCI uses in its work.
Implementation
Village Board with the assistance of CCI community organizer composed a project proposal and submitted it to the American organization Academy for Educational Development .
While reviewing the project proposal, AED requested a project documentation created by an architect and insisted that architect manages the work of community volunteers on building the bridge. When these two requests were fulfiiles in writing, AED provided financial donation for purchase of all materials needed for the bridge (wood, nails, oil for protection of wood etc.) which is approximately 6,000.00 EUROs. In addition to this donation, local communal company provided mechanisation (digging machine, machine for levelling the land and similar) free of charge.
First, communal company machines prepared the land for building the bridge. In the meantime donation from AED came through to the Village Board and community members purchased all materials that was needed.
When all the preparatory work was finished, A Volunteer Task Force representing men from the village began with building the bridge. It took them several days to fix it and make for the use of large public. Volunteer Task force was consicted of more then 30 community members that rotated on the bridge work. Women had traditional role of cooking the meal for men involved in the project. Youth of teenage age made a documentary film on this community action and presented it at the Festivity of Elementary Schools. The film was put on DVD and can be borrowed in each and every school in Croatia.
Results/Analysis
-representatives of Village Board learned how compose a project proposal for a foreign donor
-partnership was established between a Village Board and local communal company
-community members (30 men, 6-7 women and 5 youth) gained ownership over the project
-entire community was helped with this participatory project, beacuse it decreased walking distance of its members from 10 to 3 kilometers

- a pattern of resolving issues within a community was established
Success factors
The most critical factors of succes in this case study were:
1.
Readiness of community members to contribute their time and work for free in building the bridge.
2.
Readiness of community representatives to learn about project cycle management and fund-raising
3.
Financial and moral support from local authorities
4.
This action helped the youngsters, elementary school children which was high motivation for entire community
Risks/Recommendations
Risks were very much related to the question of getting needed financial support to purchase material for the bridge. If this project couldn't have found the donor, it could have had negative effect on moral of community members who could then give up of the whole project.
In that case scenario CCI's messages of importance of community working jointly together, team work as the strongest force, delegates negotiating with local authorities and representing community would have colapsed.
Contacts informations
The case study was prepared by Mirela Despotović, Director of CCI..
Center for Civil Initiatives
Park Ribnjak 1
HR-10 000 Zagreb
Croatia
Tel. ++ 385 1 4819 516
Fax. ++ 385 1 4920 795 e-mail: cci@zg.t-com.hr
web: www.cci.hr