Exigencias físicas

A serious threat to the Rodaki internal network development is the fact that, practically, there are no private sector partners. There is no support coming from small, local businesses. There are, in fact, very few people who run their own companies. There is hardly any local business in the village: “If you want to do something, you must have some money. In other villages, more people run their own, little companies, and they are ready to give away some money. Our people are not very keen on doing that. There are 2, 3 people who will give something, and that’s it”29_.

What would be needed in Rodaki is also the support offered by larger companies willing to participate in the local activities. In the past, there were some large factories (national then) which would patronise some of the village initiatives – for instance: “Wiek” (age), a cement plant from Ogrodzieniec. First, it partly sponsored the building of the Rodaki primary school, and then it was fi nancially supporting it. Today such cooperation is not possible. In order to give money, large private capital must have perspectives of real, concrete income. The local community actions, run on a micro scale, do not attract private capital.

Local business will be interested only if local projects, such as “Green Goose in the Land of White Fluff”, will cross the village borders and reach beyond the local environment – at least into the commune or the whole province: “It would be nice if there was somebody with an idea, initiative and money, who would deal with purchasing and processing meat, who would make visitors come to Rodaki for a nice meal of goose [local speciality]. It was the aim of our actions. Maybe, some day, we will be successful. If we had a larger group of breeders, they could defi nitely do a lot. There was this Japanese guy [during a conference on “Green Goose] who said he would buy any amount of feathers for processing.

He was a quilt and pillow producer, interested in Polish feathers. He was addressing the breeders, saying he would buy any amount. But he needed a lot of this stuff. He wanted his trucks to be packed immediately when he’d sent them over. We don’t have too many farms, and people breed geese mainly for their own needs, giving leftovers away to their neighbours”30_.

29 _{Interview with Rodaki village head.} 30 _{Interview with the Association president.}

Another obstacle on the way to Rodaki local development is the lack of communal support. Theoretically, the interests of the village and local authorities are the same, but the deadlock seems to be huge and extremely diffi cult to eliminate. The internal relations network may be functioning well inside the village, but it is not working at all when it comes to external relations with the commune. The factors, mentioned earlier, connecting several institutions, such as complementarity, trust, unoffi cial character of relations, cooperation traditions, or transparency of actions have been replaced by contradictory factors:

• lack of trust – it is the main problem and the reason why there is no cooperation. Unfortunately, the village council’s decision to close the primary school in Rodaki, or the ruined fi re brigade station reconstruction manoeuvres have caused the commune to lose credibility in the eyes of higher authorities. Nobody trusts the commune anymore, and it will be very diffi cult for the new local management to rebuild the village reliability: “The fi remen won’t return (give the building to the commune) the station, as they are afraid it will be taken away from them. [...] We have had this situation for many years now. There is a lack of trust between us and the commune. If you get disappointed one time, it’s hard to regain the trust”31_.

• lack of proper communication – bad atmosphere and confl ict situations cause obstacles in the information fl ow. Defective information policy of the commune causes its actions to be perceived as directed against the village. The residents feel discriminated against: “We don’t get pampered by the commune. There are not any sidewalks for us, except for the ones in front of the church and school, which we built ourselves, anyway [...]. We own everything here. We’ve done it on our own. Our parents and grandparents would never be given anything, and so we feel sorry that there was a moment when the government wanted to take stuff away from us”32_{. Thus,} the commune is perceived as a government that takes things away instead of providing them.

• blocked actions and initiatives – Rodaki frequently depends on the communal decisions. The sponsors are quite reluctant to support investments that should be paid for by the local government. And if they are ready to give some money, they expect the local community 31 _Ibid.

to participate with their own funds, too. Their own funds can only be granted by the commune. The fact that Rodaki cannot cooperate with the commune results in some projects not being realised and sponsors’ money being wasted. The Klucze commune head often complains that she learns about Rodaki initiatives too late: “We spend lots of money. It’s kind of diffi cult to deal with associations like Rodaki, as they write their own projects [...], and then come to the commune, when they have to pay 20% from their own funds”33_.

• lack of unoffi cial contacts – personal relations are crucially important in small communities. They make it easier to fi nd a job, create a climate of cooperation, build trust, and enable communication via offi cial channels. The contacts between commune management and Rodaki leaders are limited to the level which reduces the chances for local development. Both groups do meet with one another, but usually during larger offi cial events organised in Rodaki. The commune representatives are there because it is their duty, with interpersonal contacts being limited to offi cial courtesies.

• lack of common strategy – Rodaki projects are not included in the Klucze commune development strategy. Rodakians have been trying to encourage commune authorities to become interested in their local economic activity. They have tried to discuss their issues during commune council meetings to no avail. Local authorities keep refusing to base parts of their strategy on the village ideas. There are only some obscure plans according to which the commune social welfare centre should fi nance the establishment of a goose breeding social cooperative.