AUTHOR: MARIA CHRONOPOULOU | PHOTOGRAPHY: VASILIS KOUROUPIS
– Who are the team behind Vouliwatch?
– The team as it is today is made up of: Stephanos Loukopoulos, the Executive Director, Maria Nathanael, the Office, Press and Communications Manager, Panagiotis Vlachos, the Co-founder and International Strategic Manager and Konstantinos Mentzelos, who is the Platform Administrator in charge of communicating with the MPs’ offices. We also have more external collaborators.
– So did you all found Vouliwatch together?
M. – In the beginning, it was Panos and Antonis Schwarz.
S. – Antonis was in Germany. He is half-Greek, half-German and he met the people who established the German Parliament Watch, the first European Parliamentary Monitoring Organization. While there, he had the idea of trying to bring it to Greece. He met Panos, who basically united the whole team and we then went on to develop it together.
– So is this how the idea was born? From Antonis, who knew that there was something similar in Germany and who thought that it could work well in Greece?
M. – Correct. With the current state of politics in Greece and the growing gap between citizens and politicians, he also thought that it would be a good idea to create a similar platform here in Greece.
– So, what is it that you do, exactly? What exactly is Vouliwatch?
S. – Vouliwatch is an independent, non-profit initiative, the objective of which is to bring citizens closer to politics (and vice versa) by combining politics with new technologies. In order to foster active citizens, access to evaluable data and information is required. This, therefore, is the thinking behind Vouliwatch. We take data and use it to inform citizens, after which they can intervene in the work of MPs by asking them questions and making suggestions.
– So basically, if I have correctly understood, someone can use your platform to ask an MP or MEP a question on a specific subject. How do they receive an answer?
S. – You send your question, which first goes through our control filter to ensure it complies with our code of conduct in order to prevent insulting, racist or sexist content. After the question is approved, a notification is sent directly to the MP via email, and he/she can then respond to it.
– Which tools are you using?
– First, we have the Vote Watch tool, which we use to register the results of all roll-call votes taken in Parliament. Using this tool, a citizen can see the content of the proposed legislation or bill, how each MP has voted and the voting results. We also have the Observatory, or our daily news report from Parliament; we try to keep it neutral, meaning that we refrain from commentary. Lastly, we have the Policy Monitor tool, which enables citizens to compare the views of each party on a given subject. At the same time, we are developing actions seeking transparency and openness in government issues. Put together, all of these digital tools combine to make a Parliamentary Monitoring Organization. This is what these organizations are called. Vouliwatch is the first and only Parliamentary Monitoring Organization in Greece and the Balkans.
– Was it easy for you to set all this up?
S. – It wasn’t easy, but we have a very strong team and this makes a difference in terms of persistence and effectiveness.
– Did you know each other before?
S. – Not all of us did.
M. – At first, we were putting extra personal time because we liked the idea so much and we were well matched as a team.
– Where did you get funding from? How did you start up and what exactly did you do to achieve it?
S. – It is the hardest of all at the beginning, given that you have to invest a lot of your time, money and energy. At the start we were self-financed. Those who could afford it contributed financially and those who couldn’t offered their time. Following that, we launched a social funding campaign on Indiegogo, which went very well. After this, we had to try in whatever way we could to find suitable funders, foundations, programmes, etc.
M. – Due to the particularities of our parliamentary and political type as an entity, it isn’t very easy to get funding from just any organization or entity. Greek foundations and organizations are often afraid that they will become politically stigmatized.
– Do you believe that your initiative has something to do with the crisis? Do you think that you turned the conditions on their head?
M. – Yes, that was the intention at least.
S. – We are more focused on how to bring back and rebuild the trust which has been lost, not in politicians as individuals, but in Greek institutions. To get out of this crisis, we need to learn to talk to each other and to conduct politics in an environment of transparency, control and openness. This is why we did it.
– If someone wanted to make a donation, how could they do it, either within Greece or from abroad?
Μ. – He/she could certainly make a donation to the organization.
– How could he/she access the donation page?
S. – The Support/Donate button appears on all the pages of our website and can also be found at: https://vouliwatch.gr/donate
– Perfect.
M. – This is one aspect of the organization, the purely economic part. The second part is the gradual creation of a volunteer network to support us. We need people who can simply spread the word about our initiative through social media, inform their friends and help us with our data and content. Moreover, when we organize events, they help us with production and to communicate with more people. We are very open to ideas for upcoming events, new partnerships, new programmes, etc.
S. – We also want people’s support.
– At all levels.
M. – They can help us by asking questions, we are grateful for any means by which they can help and support our initiative.
S. – Vouliwatch is a tool. We don’t use it to have an impact on politics or anything like that. It is a tool and we offer it. So, the more active we are as citizens and the more we are involved in Vouliwatch, the better it will be for the environment of transparency, democracy and the support of the institutions and values we wish to uphold.
