100 Sofia Voices: Deliberating Inclusiveness

How to engage citizens in the development of their own city? How to convince politicians and local authorities to listen to the voice of citizens for our collective future? How do we make a city welcoming for everyone?
With these questions, our project wants to conduct a public debate on urban policies with citizens, selected by socio-demographic characteristics, so that they are representative of the residents of Sofia. The debate seeks to put in relation the different attitudes of these "representative" citizens, but also to provoke them to propose public policies for local problems that they themselves define as important.


The goals of our project are: 1) to draw public attention to inclusive urban policies; 2) to engage citizens with inclusive policies; 3) to engage in active advocacy for inclusive public policies at the city level.

Our goal is to engage citizens in inclusive urban policies for social groups that are excluded or invisible from our shared urban life. In fact, we are convinced that long-term successful urban policies are based on dialogue with citizens and are implemented through compromise and consent. This is why we are trying to have a public debate in a different way that allows not only those who are active, but everyone who lives in the city to participate in the conversation. In order to achieve this goal, we will bring together 100 people, selected to be representative of the socio-demographic structure of Sofia's population.


The result of a successful deliberative process would be public urban policies formulated by citizens, representative of Sofia's inhabitants, and with which they would be willing to engage.

The ultimate goal of our project is to convince public institutions at the local level to adopt and put into practice the policies formulated by citizens. We are convinced that this is the step for citizens to engage in the political process in the long term and participate in building an authentically inclusive society.