Tour no. 7

Local Action Group "The Association for the Świętokrzyskie Rural Area Development
Do you want to hear the story of a small municipality, far away from big towns? A municipality whose local authorities, in cooperation with the community, have faced up to the challenges of today’s world?
If you do, please join the visit to Baćkowice!
This small municipality has created jobs for 80 local women through a consistent developmental policy. It also carried out a number of investments mitigating climate change.

Main themes:
- jobs,
- green energy, mitigating climate change,
- care for the elderly.

Business incubator
The project was designed and implemented by the local authorities. It involved purchase of land, revitalisation of existing buildings and constructing new ones. The new building was made available to businesses, including the WOJDAK sewing company. Currently it employs 80 women, most of them over 50 years old. Ultimately the company plans to employ 150 people. With the start of the war in Ukraine, also refugees from beyond Poland’s eastern border found employment here as seamstresses.

The WOJDAK company, in cooperation with the bus company PKS from the nearby town Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, has managed to ensure transport services for employees who didn’t have their own means of transport to get to work. The Baćkowice municipality has played an important role in encouraging the bus company to establish a line for the seamstresses – it offered the bus company to move its offices to the municipality, where it would pay less tax.

The success of the first incubator building encouraged the local authorities to build, entirely with own funds, another building which already has tenants, for example a dental practice.

Investment: PLN 5.347.048 (ca. EUR 1.160.000). The project was co-financed by the ERDF.

Thermomodernization of public utility buildings and solar panels installation
The project targeted all the municipal buildings in Baćkowice, including the town hall, the school, the health centre and a multi-functional building containing the library, community hall and the post office. The buildings were all insulated and equipped with new windows and doors, and with new environmentally-friendly heating systems and photovoltaic panels. This has contributed significantly to reducing CO2 emission.

Investment: PLN 5.601.140 (ca. EUR 1.216.000). The project has been supported from the European Economic Area funding mechanism (from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway).

Care of the elderly
A modern long-term care home which provides social and medical care for 20 people. It offers them daily activities such as art therapy, ergotherapy and sociotherapy.

Investment: PLN 5.197.000 (ca. EUR 1.130.000). The project has been co-financed by the ERDF.

Recreation and sports
The local government of Baćkowice also takes care of the physical condition of the inhabitants. Thus, in 2011 an artificial lake of 4.2 hectares was built on the Trzcianka river. The investment cost PLN 4.321.112 (ca. EUR 939.000) and was co-financed by the ERDF.

In the following years, the LAG supported the development of a recreational area around the lake with PLN 300.000 (ca. EUR 65.200) from the EAFRD. The local community was strongly involved in this initiative.
In 2010 the municipality built a swimming pool next to the primary school. The pool is mainly used for courses for children and senior citizens. The investment cost PLN 6.322.908 (ca. EUR 1.375.000) and was co-financed by the ERDF.

Business Creation
The project involved setting up a Local Business Support Centre in Łagów – a place open to businesses and inhabitants from the LAG area, where they can meet, organise trainings, conferences, promotional meetings for goods or services, or use it as co-working space. The Centre’s activities are adapted to the needs of businesses, so for example meetings can be organised from Monday to Saturday at convenient hours, including the evenings. For the purposes or trainings and other courses, two rooms of the Centre were also provided with the necessary equipment and furniture.