Extended deadline: June 14th
A new year, a new Open Call for the Transformative Cities People’s Choice Award!
Is your collective defending the Right To The City? Share your strategies and join the Transformative Cities Open Call for 2020! The initiative is an opportunity for progressive local governments, municipalist coalitions, social movements and civil society organizations to popularize and share their experiences of building solutions to our planet’s systemic economic, social, political and ecological crisis.
The Transformative Cities initiative is launched by a group of regional and international organizations (in alphabetical order): European network for community-led initiatives on climate change and sustainability (Ecolise), Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of Social Solidarity Economy (RIPESS), Habitat International Coalition (HIC), the Global Platform for the Right to the City (GPR2C) and the Transnational Institute (TNI).
Why Transformative cities?
The initiative draws on the emerging wave of transformative practices and responses taking place at municipal level worldwide, by launching a unique platform and award process that will facilitate the wider dissemination of the lessons and inspiration from such practices. Change in different forms is happening all over the world, and sometimes it is hard to know where to look. Transformative Cities can be seen as a telescope, to help navigate through the complex galaxy of struggles and positive transformation unfolding on a local level across the globe.
The Transformative Cities Award, aims to highlight political practices and solutions that can serve as inspiration for others. It aspires to create a new model of awards, which is participatory, inspirational, and rooted in exchange and learning. It seeks to spurr a process of knowledge co-creation and practice exchange that leads to an atlas of political practices, whose inspiring stories speed up a process of systemic transformation towards a more democratic, equal, peaceful and resilient world.
This award does not seek to pass judgment on social movements, civil society organizations, citizens platforms or other groups. It is a platform where those acting to transform the world may systematize their successful practices, exchange with and learn from others, and receive increased exposure and outreach. After two successful editions, the initiative is engaged in an ongoing learning process, looking at how to systematize local political practices so good practices can be identifies and process of transformation can be accelerated.
How to apply?
The Transformative Cities initiative is open to collectives, not individuals. A collective can have the form of a social movement with recognizable structures and goals- even without a formal legal recognition, a legally existing civil society organization, a citizens’ platform seeking to gain institutional power at municipal and/or city level via a political candidacy, an established city council, or other forms of collective action that center their practices in a specific location that is not generally recognized as a region, state or similar delimitation.
The third edition of the award (2020) will look at four issues: Energy, Water and Housing and Food. Did you apply last year and not win the award? We encourage you to apply again, probably your initiative has grown stronger and you have more inspiration to share.
- If you are not sure about your eligibility, please don’t hesitate to contact the organizers.
- Check the FAQ section for further details and information.
- To apply please follow this questionnaire.
The deadline was extended and now applications are accepted until the 14th of June, 2020. 23.59h CET (GMT+1)
Three key stories for each category will be chosen by expert evaluators in different fields. These 12 stories will receive widespread promotion, in order to share the most inspiring initiators with as wide a public as possible. As a finalist of the 2020 edition your story will be included in the Atlas of Utopias 2020, which this year will feature all finalists from all the three editions so far. An inspiring mosaic of real transformative utopias.
These top twelve stories will be voted on by the global community that is being created, which includes your community! Although the popular vote will technically identify a winner in each category that receive the People’s Choice Award, the goal is not to create competition between different political practices, but rather to put a spotlight on transformative practices and encourage their spread internationally.
