Second Networking Meeting of the Civica Mobilitas grantees

“I am impressed by the great number of people I see here, since it is a clear indicator that Civica Mobilitas is growing”, the Swiss Ambassador to Macedonia, Sybille Suter Tejada said at the opening of the second in a row networking meeting of Civica Mobilitas, held on 15 November 2016 in hotel Drim in Struga.

“The richness you all bring by different visions makes me have an optimistic feeling about the future of Macedonia”. She expressed satisfaction with the direction and development of the program and an expectation that its implementation would continue with the same pace. “Civil society organizations in Macedonia have good organizational capacities, but there is a lack of better communication with the citizens. For this reason, we will continue to provide support in the process of strengthening that link with the constituencies’, Ambassador Tejada added.

Ask yourselves, what is the change that has happened as a result of your work”, Simon Forester, an international expert of Civica Mobilitas said to the participants at the session dedicated to “reporting about achievements” and “building links with the constituencies”. He stressed that the organizations waste their time on what is happening inside the system, and less on what comes out of the system – i.e. the change in society. “Usually, these changes are not very big, but the changes in society are made of small steps which are part of something very big”, Forester said.

The representatives of the organizations, users of specific grants, presented their activities. Some of the grantees shared their experiences of how they engage constituencies in their activities. The representative of Red Cross of the City of Skopje talked about the Program of humane values, which has been functioning for 15 years, and which mobilizes over 1200 young people over the whole territory of Macedonia. The representative of Еco Guerrilla stressed that when the citizens are involved in the decision making process, they feel that their interests are represented.

“At the beginning the people did not believe that there was pollution in Tetovo, but now it is one of the highest priority issues in the town”, Arianit Dzaferi stressed. For the organized traditional cleaning of the dump sites, “Let’s do it Macedonia”, this year, they mobilized over 16000 citizens and 70 CSOs throughout Macedonia. “In the 7-8 years of our existence, we have managed, through our effort, to impose the idea to the citizens in Macedonia to start thinking about the animals’ rights and their treatment”, Stole Popovski from Аnima Mundi said.

About 115 representatives of civil society organizations participated at the workshop, and besides the Swiss Ambassador to Macedоnia, the Dutch Ambassador to Macedonia, Wouter Plomp, was present.