Agoraut
Monday, 10 December , 2007 – 18:02Agoraut was officially founded in February 2007 thanks to the idea of seven young people (all in the 20/35 age bracket) who spontaneously, and sometimes almost by chance, were carrying out analyses and considerations about the political and social environment of their native territory.
The organization’s aim is to improve and promote local information and tourism. This is done through the organization and the promotion of live and online conferences, shows, events, seminars, meetings and discussions using whatever means multimedia technology has to offer.
Activities and projects
Web portal: Agoraut manages a web portal called “LaSiritide.it”. This portal is already one-year-old; its contents cover a wide range of topics, all concerned with issues of local interest. The idea was inspired by the name of ancient southern Basilicata. This territory, reaching the coasts of the Jonium sea, was at the times of the Great Greece called “Siritide” or “Sirtide”, from the name of the city of Siris.
The start up of the video news is a first step towards providing interactive television: basically the most important news as well as football and basketball matches reviews are offered to users in the format of proper tv-news reports.
Our portal has reached, in less than ten months, 125.000 connections.
Conventions: organising conventions is one of the main and most important activities in our organisation. This task is considered of paramount importance to thoroughly deploy the concept of interactivity: in addition to the virtual interaction we provide users with the possibility to have face-to-face interaction. This happened, for instance, in the occasion of the presentation of the Agoraut project: after the conference there was a constructive debate on ideas and opinions.
It is our intention to organise frequently this kind of events. The next one will be focussed on the illegal dumping of wastes in our area and we are currently working on the making of a documentary on the “odyssey” of local young people who have to emigrate to pursue further education.
Every meeting will see the participation of those representatives, from public or private institutions, involved in the debated issues.
Reports of these events will then be published onto the website, to allow those who can’t physically attend to keep up-to-date and to participate the virtual discussions on the forum.
The organisation does not currently collaborate with any other local or national organisation nor it is linked to any artistic/associative circuit any macro association.
Funding
Every activity carried out by the association is at present self-funded by founding members, with the only exception of a private donation, which allowed the purchase of only a part of the equipment needed.
Problems and hindrances for the organisation growth
A planned programme of events is essential to foster culture in Basilicata and to market and promote the region as a whole (even though acknowledging its different facets and idiosyncrasies) to a foreign public.
At the present time a plethora of events are being funded, some of them similar to one another or sometimes poorly integrated in the whole offer.
It is crucial to create a single programme or, at least, organise it geographically or by topics, with an aim to produce a more coherent and logical offer that would appear less confused and confusing to the foreign public.
On the way to the realisation of this project we’ve found the following problem: the lack of funds. The problem with the public sector is, according to our short experience, the way in which action is taken. Public institutions have a budget for funding cultural events and these money are indeed employed and spent; however what is missing is the management of human resources. The valorisation of a territory cannot take place if it doesn’t start from the stage of rising the awareness of local inhabitants. On the contrary, far too often incentives and projects follow a top-down route. The blame for this is also to put on the local players, not accustomed and unaware of the value of this kind of initiatives. The organisation of great events aims at drawing and focussing the attention on the place where these are held; however it is up to local players to offer in addition to the event, reasons for a prolonged interest, in line with local resources and, most importantly, local needs.
At the present moment we haven’ found any particular difficulties in dealing with privates, also because we’ve had only a single experience with them.
