The reason for initiating this programme is to actively involve citizens in creating cultural and social events and enticing the production and organisational capacities of informal civil society groups and individuals.
The Participate campaign was launched in late 2018 as part of the European Capital of Culture project with the aim of, among other things, inviting the citizens of Rijeka to participate in the ECoC project by proposing ideas that could make Rijeka a more interesting city, that are based on the cooperation between citizens and that benefit a large number of people. An array of people responded, showing that they can be innovative and different, while the programmes they proposed as part of the Civil Initiatives for the Participate campaign focused on people coming together to socialise through useful or educational activities, as well as on the added values of togetherness advocated in programmes that had already been conducted. A second Participate campaign was conducted in mid-2019 and also had a large turnout. The proposed ideas also included groups of citizens that may sometimes feel excluded from the social life of the city for any of a variety of reasons.