“i want to participate in politics,

“I want to participate in politics,

Don’t know how,

Have no time ...”

April 24, 2007

Summary

• E-Democracy• What’s HazteOir.org?• Origin• Development• Services• Some successes• Social campaigns

e-Democracy

• Internet as a source for politics news www.hazteoir.org

• Forum for the political debate http://foro.hazteoir.org

• E-Lobbying* www.hazteoir.org – www.hayalternativas.org –

• Virtual electoral campaign• E-Vote• E-Government• E-Parliament

Government-citizen relations

What’s…?

– An association of citizens and entities

– Fighting for a better world

– Based on a Christian conception of man and society

– Trying to influence society, public opinion, the media and politics, and

– Facilitate citizen participation

– Using the Internet as basic tool

Platform of citizens and entities

HO community Public lifeLobby

We facilitate political participation of citizens

Participative democracyPolitics = serviceContribute towards the Common Good and human rights

…fighting for a better world

…Christian inspiration

• We are a civil association

• Non-religious

• Mostly formed of Catholics– Also protestants and atheists– Have collaborated with Evangelicals,

Orthodox, Jews and Muslims

Public opinion

Government

Parliament

The Media

All territorial levels

Political parties

…trying to influence…

…trying to facilitate participation

• We try to make political participation– Easy– Comfortable– Agile

• New technologies– Internet– E-mail (Newsletter)– SMS– PHP-Nuke– PHPbb– Message forwarding– E-Petitions– Blogs– RSS

News (one issue) Web and e-mail

Action proposals to promote a specific position regarding the issue

Action Alerts

Our representatives receive daily messages from citizens

• A group of 3 motivated friends created HazteOir.org

• February, 2001

• We wanted to express – make us hear – our opinion, but did not know who to talk to

• We thought Internet could be the vehicle to connect the people and politicians

• We “copied” some initiatives of the USA: MoveOn.org, cc.org

Origin

Development: HO people

Our most relevant asset

• HO team and network: 50 cyber-activists• Newsletter subscriptions: 20.000• Visits/day: 15.000• Ranking Alexa: 56.000 (higher than pp.es

or psoe.es)• Mesages sent from HO: 3 million (approx.)

Development: platforms and entities

• Single-issue platforms created by HO– Hay Alternativas– Cheque escolar– Europa, Así NO

• Entities created at the HO environment– Centro de Estudios Jurídicos Tomás Moro

(CJTM)– Asociación de Víctimas del Aborto (AVA)– Impuesto por la Vida

• Entities created with HO participation– No es igual (ILP)

• Information: Electronic Publication • Activism: Action Alerts

– Politicians, journalists, institutions, companies

• Newsletter• SMS• Discussion Forum and Chat• The e-Store• Opinion Polls• Forward of Letters to the Editor of 120 media

Some services

Working groups and meetings with politicians

With representatives of the Popular Party (PP) and the Socialist Party (PSOE) to discuss our proposals regarding their electoral programsThe PSOE, for instance, incorporated some of our ideas in their Family development plan.

Some successes

InformationAt a meeting of the European Popular Party, representatives knew about the position of Spanish Government thanks to www.hazteoir.org. They finally adopted this position.

DocumentationA Spanish Minister printed all documents about embryonic stem cell research.

Some successes

The Media

See press dossier

Abroad, we have been at: AP, CNN, RTF Switzerland, La Reppublica (Italia), Euro news, BBC (TV and Radio), The Times (UK)

Some successes

E-lobbying

Human Organ trafficking at Mozambike “Rafaela Operation”www.hayalternativas.orgEl Corte InglésCaja Madrid

Some successes

ILP 500,000 signatures to legally oblige Parliament to vote our proposal of Law in favor of the family and the children

June 18, 2005 More than 1 million people at the streets of Madrid demonstrating for the family and against the Law to equalize marriage and same-sex couples

Some successes

June 29, 2005 19 demonstrations in 19 cities

Same issues as at June 18

Organized in 5 days through the Internet, the e-mail and the SMS

Between 200 and 2500 people in each demonstration

Some successes

5 elements of a campaign

Strong and Reasonable Ideas (think tank)

The Media

Contacts with Politicians

Partnering with NGOs

Grass-root Lobbying: the Internet

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that

ever has.”

www.hazteoir.org