Pares
Pares - participation, responsibility, sustainability it's a cooperative of professionals with complementary skills that has been operating at local and national level since 2001. Pares supports local communities, public administrations and companies, non profit and civil society organizations, schools and training agencies, through a variety of tailored projects that mix collaborative training, co-design and participatory processes, digital cooperation, impact evaluation. In recent years Pares has focused on the designing, implementation and management of digital tools and platforms for participation, online collaboration and co-design, and it is currently involved in projects with public administrations and organisations using e-democracy software platforms to support citizen participation.
Region
Italy
Working with Decidim since
2020.07.24
Type of Service Provider
Private Social Cooperative
Most relevant experiences
Municipality of Vignola – Participatory budgeting
Since 2021, Pares has been supporting the Municipality of Vignola (Emilia-Romagna) in its participatory budgeting, handling the implementation and management of the Decidim platform, coordinating activities, providing training on participatory budgeting and digital citizenship, and facilitating the online process.
The participatory budgeting is supported through VignolaPartecipa, a Decidim-based platform that allows citizens to submit proposals, vote, and follow every phase of the process, including the final results. The platform also features an accountability section, enabling people to track the progress and implementation status of the winning projects.
Emilia-Romagna Region – PartecipAzioni platform
Since 2021 Pares has been providing training and consultancy services for the use of the Emilia-Romagna Region’s Decidim-based e-democracy platform: PartecipAzioni. The platform supports the participatory processes carried out by the Region within its policies and in implementation of Regional Law 15/2018. It hosts regional participatory processes and offers dedicated spaces for municipalities and organizations across the region to run their own participatory initiatives. It also hosts the Regional Community of Participatory Practices (CDPP), which brings together all actors involved in participatory methodologies within the territory.
Pares supports the Region in managing the platform and provides assistance for municipalities and organizations that use it to design and deliver their participatory processes, providing tailored training and consultancy. Pares has also organized and facilitated training webinars using participatory methodologies to promote a better understanding and knowledge of the platform’s features and its tools. Additional activities include the development of component-specific user kits and the operation of an appointment-based help desk for platform support.
Municipality of Parma - ParmaPartecipa
The municipality of Parma approved a new municipal regulation on participation that formally integrates the platform ParmaPartecipa among the institutional participation mechanisms provided. Pares is responsible for the platform’s design and ongoing management.
These are main sections where citizens can engage on the platform:
1) Collaboration pacts for common goods: a section where citizens can share proposals for formal agreements with the Municipality of Parma to care for and regenerate commons, public spaces or community assets.
2) “Neighborhood labs”: (“Laboratori di quartiere”) 11 permanent assemblies promoted by the Municipality of Parma to actively involve residents, local associations, and stakeholders in addressing the needs and priorities of their neighborhoods.
3) Processes: a space that provides a clear overview of all participatory initiatives promoted by the Municipality through the Decidim platform. Each process guides citizens step by step through the various phases making timelines, activities, and outcomes transparent and accessible.