Project „Candidates 2011” was created to raise awareness among Polish society about conscious voting in parliamentary elections. The project realizes two important ideas: e-demoracy and e-volunteering. E-volunteering enables people to take part in the activities of the organization from afar, without leaving the place they live in. The team of e-volunteers from all over country contacted the candidates to Polish parliament and encouraged them to fill in the questionnaires about their experience and political views on important issues.

All of the questionnaires were uploaded to the http://www.mamprawowiedziec.pl website, so the Polish voters were able to read them and decide consciously to whom give their vote in parliamentary elections.

Stowarzyszenie 61 pays strong attention to the good preparation of new e-volunteers. They take part in the e-training dedicated to the project (on its idea, details and on the parliamentary elections). Then every volunteer signs an agreement and at the end of cooperation receives a certificate.

Specific tasks for e-volunteers are as follows:

• getting in touch with committees of the political parties and spreading the idea of the project (by meeting the candidates and sending informational e-mails to them and their committees),
• e-volunteers are also encouraged to use social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and nk.pl, to spread information about the project,
• they also take part in preparing databases with information useful for the project, as contact details to the candidates and committees, information about their occupations, previous and present public functions they were or are in charge of,
• e-volunteers provide Internet research focused on searching e-mail addresses to candidates in order to facile communication with them and make possible sending them an invitation to fill in questionnaires,
• in the first stage of the project, e-volunteers were also asked to monitor local media and search for information about potential candidates from their constituency.

Who are the e-volunteers?

Mostly young people in the age from 16 to 30. We sign an agreement with the minors when their legal guardians agreed to their co-operation with Stowarzyszenie 61. In a group of e-volunteers we have also physically disabled people.

Whom do you address your activity to? Who is the recipient?

Project is targeting 3 groups of recipients – candidates in the elections, the media and the voters, with an obvious focus on internet users, who are thought to be young, educated, affluent and from bigger cities rather than villages. However there is a chance to reach also other social groups.

Name of organization: Stowarzyszenie 61

Project title: Candidates 2011

Project website: http://www.mamprawowiedziec.pl