More than 250 Rural Women Submitted 27 Applications to Municipalities and Received Contractual Funds, Roles in Local Decision Making and Implemented Initiatives
“When we were going to the municipality, it was as if we were going to the battlefield, but with documentation, and the municipality was surprised by our advocacy skills”, says Emilija Jakimovska from Karposh neighbourhood in Kumanovo.
Civica Mobilitas dedicates this news to the women from rural areas, in October, when the 15th of the month is the International Day of Rural Women. Their story was selected because it includes specific, measurable, visible and inspirational results, there are changes visible in the communities, rather than juts promises.
Emilija Jakimovska is one of the 256 women included in the project “Active Women”, implemented by the humanitarian association “Mother” from Kumanovo, in partnership with the Regional Center for Sustainable Development from Kratovo, Spektar Regional Center from Kriva Palanka and the Foundation for Small and Medium Enterprise Development from Kumanovo. The project has been supported by the Swiss Government via Civica Mobilitas, and it was implemented for two years, until the end of June 2026.
In order to understand the wight of Emilija’s words, one should know where the women started from: empty rural areas, young people who had moved pout, even lack of public transport to urban centres. Women had rarely communicated with the institutions and almost never participated in local policy creation.
Therefore, the first question was how to reach them. In eight communities, Karposh and Pukovsko in Kumanovo, Ketenovo, Shlegovo and Turalevo in Kratovo, as well as Konopnica, Durachka Reka and Mozhdivnjak in Kriva Palanka, two local animators were selected per community via local all, or 16 in total, who had their first communication in their neighbourhoods. In these discussions, the women together spoke about their problems, they ranked them by importance, and they learnt how the municipality works, how budget is read and how one speaks in front of decision makers.
This resulted in 68 proposals, grouped in 27 formal requests and submitted to the municipalities and public enterprises. The plan was surpassed with 11 requests. 256 women in total were included in the activities, and they passed through the process of trainings, workshops, meetings and public activities.
The example of Karposh (Kumanovo) is clearest in the sense of seeing how implementation of new knowledge and skills of women looks like in practice. On 23rd December 2025, two representatives of the women’s informal group from Karposh and “Mother” association set in front of the acting director of “Hygiene and Greenery” public enterprise from Kumanovo with requests for waste collection, containers, cleaning of illegal landfills and cutting trees. The acting director told them that the enterprise did not have the capacity for everything, but he offered that the waste is collected at most once per week and the location of the barracks is cleaned in the spring. The women were not satisfied with the response. They asked for an additional meeting, they were better prepared, and at the second meeting on 21st May 2026, they received logistic support for an environmental action and education in primary schools, which covered around 300 students.
When the municipality saw this persistence, they reacted. The Sector for Social Protection recognized the activists from Karposh as relevant collocutors, and two of them became members of the newly established Social Council at the Municipality of Kumanovo. At the meeting with the representatives of the Municipality, the women also agreed on the preparation of project documentation for the school reconstruction in the neighbourhood of Igo Trichkovikj.
There are results with the neighbouring communities as well. The Municipality of Kumanovo prepared project designs for children’s corners in Karposh and Pukovsko respectively, and four proposals given by the women entered the development plan and budget for 2026. One has already been implemented, street 425 in Pukovsko has been reconstructed.
The biggest response came from Kriva Palanka. Six proposals of the women entered the municipal budget for 2026, and their initiatives were included in the Equal Opportunities Programme, with financial support. At the meeting with the mayor in March 2026, women representatives of Durachka Reka, Mozhdivnjak and Konopica agreed that the municipality provides 1,000 Euro for each of the three communities respectively. Women also participated in the municipal budget forum for the first time. In Konopica there were containers placed, and in Mozhdivnjak the renovation of the primary school started.
In Kratovo the institutional response was slower, but there was a change there as well. The needs of the women were also submitted in the municipality in writing, while in Shlegovo there was a new local community established, with one of the women also included in the leadership.
The support for the women did not only come from the municipalities. The initiatives in Karposh, Mozhdivnjak, Durachka Reka and Konopica were co-financed by the local self-government and business community representatives, which enabled their full implementation. Therefore, the public events in June 2026 were also a celebration of what had been done. In Ketenovo and Turalevo, there was urban equipment with collection sport placed, and in Shlegovo the school yard was completed with children’s and sport’s equipment, in Durachka Reka there was an eaves built. In Mozhdivnjak a children’s corner was made, while in Konopica there was a start of fencing of a sport playground, and the students in Pukovsko were provided with sports equipment.
The project did not limit itself on the requests to the municipalities. There were 80 women at 16 workshops on employment and self-employment. They learned how to write CVs and motivation letters, how to conduct interviews and which government and European programmes are available, and the facilitator was providing mentorship support also after the training. One of the participants also applied for apple processing business and received a 5,000 Euro grant.
Women did not remain limited to their villages. At the three regional meet8ings in Kriva Palanka, Kratovo and Kumanovo met the women of the eight communities with local self-government and CSO representatives. There were 278 participants, 252 of whom women. The partnership organizations also list the new contacts and mutual support among the women as a long-term result. In Spektar regional centre, the number of volunteers grew from 30 to 52, mostly because of rural women and inhabitants of the villages covered.
The monitoring of the municipalities showed that the response of the institutions is not the same everywhere. The biggest progress is there where the demands were hand-in-hand with direct meetings of the women with people in charge, rather than where there was correspondence only.
Therefore, women’s cores in the eight communities have remained after the end of the project. At the two-day workshop in Vinica, in June 2026, the coordinators of the cores prepared a Sustainability Plan. The partners also expanded their institutional network. “Mother” humanitarian association signed a memorandum with the Municipality of Kumanovo on economic empowerment of women, while “Spektar” signed a memorandum with the Municipality of Kriva Palanka on citizen priorities valid until 2029. The organizations also prepared new donor applications, part of which were approved, in order to continue their work with the women in Karposh and Pukovsko.
“There is interest in the field, now after two years of work, the whom who were not involved in our work are interested in joining our activities”, says the representative of Konopica, Kriva Palanka.
“Active Women” showed how the women from the villages, when informed and organised, can start the processes that concern them, and the institutions can hear them out. Therefore, on the Day of Rural Women, Civica Mobilitas recognizes the women of the eight communities and continues to recognize and support such activities.
