Diana Filimon

With experience in PR, three years ago I felt that the speed with which the democracy in Romania was deteriorating was unbearable and that it was an obligation to get involved in a grass roots movement which would help the communities to get organised and stand up against the growing wave of populism. The NGO created by us, a group of people from the community, has grown beyond our dreams and from a small local initiative it has become a national relevant association. On a local level we focused on creating a community around our projects, through various types of events: civic festivals, open air events about the recent history of Romania, movie premieres in unexplored spaces of the town, renting an old house and transforming it into a multifunctional space which hosts art exhibitions, experimental theatre plays, music concerts, workshops with some of the best journalists, artists and activists plus many other artistic happenings. At a national level we focus on the younger generation, so we designed projects with a civic message, but which combine art, history and activism in a new way, with partners like museums, Cultural Institutes, schools, Universities, town halls, artists and NGOs from around Europe.