| Abstract [eng] |
Community centres acting in local communities in Lithuania, unlike in Western democracies, are a new phenomenon. It has been driven by the financial support of the EU and national investments with the aim to encourage communality in rural areas. The peak of establishment of these organisations was observed only in 2003–2004. The scope and functional purpose of such organizations remains unclear: what activities, how, and for what purposes these NGOs do.Therefore, the aim of the thesis is to reveal the role of Lithuanian community centres as a form of non-governmental organisations in local communities. This dissertation paper is based on a social network theoretical approach which is combined with the community development conception which analyses the activity of non-governmental organisations. The results of the empirical research revealed that community centres functioning in Lithuania can be divided into several groups by the types of their roles: service providers, negotiators, controlling intermediaries and administrators, and various possible modifications of these roles. Each of these role types can be identified on the basis of the nature of community activities, the specificities of services, the available resources (financial, human or infrastructural), the nature of relationships, the partnership among the actors of the local community network, and the created changes in the quality of life in the local community. |
