July 28, 2009
VISIT OF THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE WORLD BANK TO PIRGOS AND PRESS CONFERENCE

In connection with realization of the project “Civic Forum”, supported by the World Bank, a press conference was held on 27.07.2009. in the premises of Civic Library PIRGOS which started at 12:00 PM. All local media, RTS office in Pirot – National media service Serbia and reporters of daily newspapers (Blic, Politika and Večernje novosti) were present at the press conference.

Soon after the conference Civic Library Pirgos was visited by Director of World Bank – Serbian Office, Mr. Simon Gray and coordinator of the program for civic society Mrs. Mirjana Popović.

Representatives of World Bank were very satisfied with the visit and showed interest for further cooperation, both with Civic Library Pirgos and relevant institutions of Pirot municipality. Mr. Simon Gray was especially interested in the status and problems of Roma minority, which was actually the topic of the project Civic Forum.
 
Organization of the press conference was without problems. All media, with the exclusion of RTS Pirot office were present at the press conference. The key speakers at the conference were:

• Antonio Antić – PR of Civic Library Pirgos
• Dragan Mladenović – project coordinator
• Radovan Asković – counselor for minority issues in MA Pirot

Press Conference and additional PR activities of CL Pirgos have contributed to a large increase of project’s visibility, awareness building and information enhance so that more citizens could be included in this project. 
Consultative program of the project CIVIC FORUM was initiated immediately after the contract was signed. There were 12 accounted visits from the representatives of the Roma minority population, Roma NGO representatives and representatives of local authorities. The most frequent questions were as follows:

• How to find funds for solving problems of minorities
• How to strengthen the capacities of organization that deal with Roma issues
• How to act accordingly in the making contact with the relevant institutions