Civic Impulse #11: Monthly Review of Grantee Activities
November 2025
In the second last month of 2025, the CSOs who are current Civica Mobilitas grantees continued with the same pace in opening important issues and offer solutions to everyday challenges in the communities in all eight planning regions in the country. From environment and sustainable development, via gender equality and social inclusion, up to education and economic empowerment of women and young people, the civil sector has proven to be present and engaged where it is most needed.
Gender equality and local budgets have remained one of the priorities of the grantees. The results of the Need Analysis of Women and Girls from the Eastern Region, which was prepared by the Loud Textile Worker from Shtip, together with the partner organizations in the project “Via Women’s Activism and Initiatives to Gender Inclusive and Responsible Municipalities” have shown that although gender equality is formally recognized, it has not been integrated in the public policy creation and budget priorities yet. More than half of the women surveyed think that the society is more favourable to men, while more than 60% had never participated in public debates, forums of consultations organised by the municipalities. Many of them have no information on the local budget and importance of gender responsible budget, and only 10% believe that their opinion would be taken into consideration, which shows the low level of trust in the institutions and the need of systemic change.
HERA, together with ESE, “Stronger Together” and the Initiative for the Rights of the Women from Shuto Orizari have started the national campaign ”When You Save on Prevention – the Consequences Are Expensive”. The campaign calls for establishing a system that puts prevention in the centre of health policies, because every denar saved today is paid more expensively tomorrow – at the determent of the citizens and the system that spends more on treatments. Another issue is the lack of information on the existing measures. For example, the figures of the Analysis show that 92% of the Roma women do not know that they have the right to a free of charge gynaecological check-up. This shows that it is never enough to establish measures but the beneficiaries should also be acquainted with them so that they can use them.
In the area of education, in the new issue of “Successful Stories”, Lorik Idrizi from the Balkan Institute for Regional Cooperation (BIRC) spoke about work culture and social awareness. The university professor Mirjana Maleska also spoke about the project “Advocacy for Inclusive Development” in an interview, who criticizes the overload of curricula, outdated lesson books and resistance to changes, which keep the system a prisoner of the past.
Women from Kratovo, Krivа Palanka and Kumanovo united again via the project “Active Women” at the second regional meeting. The humanitarian association “Mother” from Kumanovo, the Regional Center for Sustainable Development (RCOR) Kratovo, “Spektar” from Kriva Palanka and the Foundation for Small and Medium Enterprise Development Kumanovo inform about the increased participation of women in decision making and community development. The women from rural areas are more and more encouraged to actively articulate their problems, address them to the local authorities and become involved in the processes of local policy creation.
The women from the village of Kanatlarci stressed their most important needs, such as a kindergarten, support to women’s entrepreneurship and infrastructure improvement. Their demands were heard thanks to the Women’s Civic Initiative “Antiko” and the partner organizations that implement the project „”The Voice and Participation of Women and Young People in Creation of Public Policies and Enabling Environment for Civic Participation”.
In November, “Antiko”, Adrion and “Cohabitation Always” also organised an event in Krivogashtani as part of the campaign “16 Days of Activism against gender Based and Domestic Violence”, where the women learnt about the reporting mechanisms and the role of the community in violence prevention.
The Center for Environment Resources (REC), in partnership with Eco Logic and Florozon from Skopje continued with their caravan for demonstrating experiments in the schools. This time, the students at “Mirche Acev” primary school from the municipality of Gjorche Petrov and from ”Vera Ciriviri – Trena” primary school from the municipality of Karposh learned about processing bio waste into biodiesel and organic plastic.
At the same time, these organizations published an article which shows the successful bio waste management in the European cities such as Milan, Catalonia, France and Austria and underlines the importance of education, financial stimulations and cooperation between the citizens and municipalities.
The investment in education on sustainable future starts from the earliest age. In ”Petar Musev” primary school from Bogdanci the partner organization of the Center for Climate Change, the Foundation for Local Development and Development of Information Technologies – Gevgelija implemented one of the series of trainings from the project “Regional Partnership for Better Implementation of the Green Agenda at Local Level”, where the children were informed about the European Green Deal and the Western Balkans Green Agenda.
The first case study ”Reporting a Polluter – Is (Not) Your, My, Our Task!”, prepared by the Center for Youth Activism KRIK, “Hope” Center for Social Initiatives and the Association of Social Workers of Macedonia (ZSRM) shows the challenges and steps that each one of us can undertake in the fight for cleaner environment. The study is part of “ZZZ – Together for Green Advocacy for Environment Protection”, project supported by the Swiss Government via Civica Mobilitas.
With their November activities, the Civica Mobilitas grantees have confirmed once again that they are part of a broader process of building more inclusive communities, more responsible institutions and more active citizens across the country.
