Rural grass-roots organizing in eastern Europe: the experience from Lithuania

This article examines rural grass-roots organizing in Lithuania.A conceptual scheme is proposed to differentiate among threetypes of activities prevalent in rural community building: theinitiation, voluntary communal activities, and not-for-profitcommunal activities. The model is applied to examine the establishmentof one of the most successful rural non-governmental organizations(NGOs) in Eastern Lithuania – the Community Centre ofBalninkai village (population 496). The strategies that wereused to initiate the Balninkai organization and to engage involuntary communal and not-for-profit activities are identified.Internal and external factors influencing successful organizingare addressed as well as the potential impact of European Unionmembership. While there are numerous obstacles facing ruralactivists in post-socialist Lithuania, there are also significantopportunities for community organizations to contribute to sustainedrural development in Lithuania.