Civic activism and social changes

Civica Mobilitas was part of the fifth in a row D-Festival, held from 17 to 19 July 2015 in Old Dojran. In the festival camp, there were organized two events: informative session about the program and thematic forum dedicated to civic engagement.

Civic Engagement in Macedonia, i.e the involvement of citizens in initiation and achievement of social changes was the topic of the forum, held on 19 July 2015. Through the examples of the informal associations: “On bike” and “Students’ Plenum“ , the participants discussed: How big and what type should be the critical mass for causing social change?; What is necessary to make the necessary critical mass?; How to mobilize the citizens for social changes? Should the traditional and/or modern methods and tools be used?, etc.

Jovana Tozija and Iskra Savovska from “On bike” talked about the beginnings of the movement and about the manner of communication with the competent institutions. “We function horizontally, we don’t have a hierarchical structure, everybody contributes whenever he/she can and by what he/she can”, Jovana Tozija said. Such way of functioning takes time and energy, but they don’t plan to change it for the time being. They shared experiences of cooperation with the institutions. “When they make mistakes, we criticize them, but when they do something good, we praise them. They are not our friend, but they are not necessarily our enemies – we need the institutions to achieve our goal and to provide the changes we need”, Savovska said. “For any type of activism”, Jovana Tozija said, “it is important that you feel satisfaction about certain situation or anger which will keep you long enough to lead you to make efforts that will result in change; to respect the opinion of the others; not to reduce the discussions on personal basis, but on arguments; to be honest, because it can be easily recognized. Stick to your goal, and do not loose its focus”, she recommended to the participants.

Darko Malinovski from Students’ Plenum talked about their experience regarding the way they organize and function. “The Students’ Plenum is a complex group and it is a response, among other things, to our dissatisfaction of how the formal associations of students are functioning. We thought that the horizontal setup was appropriate to create a critical mass for the goal we had”, he said. Malinovski also talked about the need for depolitization of the movement and the initial decision to avoid the traditional media. “The horizontal setup enables the students to express their opinion, and certainly it requires more time, sometimes there are long discussions, which slow down the response of the movement”, he added. “On the other hand, during those discussions, different opinions arise, which are not necessarily correct or incorrect – the discussions enable us to reach a third option, usually the best solution”. Within the spirit of functioning of “Students’ Plenum”, the present affiliates also shared their ideas. They shared that they were often asked if part of the energy would be lost when part of the activist graduated. For the “Plenum people” it is not a problem at all. “Our friends from the “High school Plenum” will become our colleagues next September, and they will bring their energy with themselves, and together we will work not only on the Law on Higher Education, but also on many other issues such as for example the student standard”, Bojan Ristovski from “Students’ Plenum” said.

In the discussion that followed, the participants shared their experiences and asked for more details about some aspects of both examples that were presented.

The second event was the informative session, where Daniela Stojanova presented the program, and in the discussion that followed, the participants were interested in the possibilities for financial support of the formal and informal associations, for establishment of cooperation, etc.