Macedonian Institute for Media

The next meeting I had was with the Macedonian Institute for Media (MIM). I interviewed the someone high up on the ladder and someone who focused more on the NGO side. All comments here when stated by “they” refer to something either one of them or both of them said.

They are a NGO/foundation that has existed for 10 years (2001) and are supported by the 90 most relevant media outlets around the country. They provide capacities that serve all media and journalistic outlets in MK. They provide education for media professionals (where no other organizations provide this service). They also analyze the content of the media, especially during the elections. Often they will complete topical evaluations such as on community laws, online media, etc. They offer conferences both seminal and topical.

They want to create a public discourse about the media in MK. The media scene is facing problems with freedom of the press and freedom of association. They want to create an association of journalists and a union of journalists, but they face many legal problems in this course of action. They are currently organizing an event with the most relevant individuals who will be gathered to improve the media situation.

MIM works closely with the civil society sector in MK and contributes in areas where the media has impact. They help build the capacity in the civil society sector by educating the media contacts of relevant organizations so that they can have a bigger impact when they reach out to the media. MIM also wants to increase the position of civil society in MK, and to do so are working on a 5 year program. They want to help strengthen the civil society with 4 partners (Institute for Sustainable partnership, EU non Profit Law, and Center for Intercultural Dialog). As part of the project there will be re-granting opportunities to local NGOs that are smaller to give them more concrete action in the field.

There are 20-25 NGOs with greater capacities as leader NGOs, they do strategic work in developing policy papers, helping with development of the nations laws, helping improve NGOs. there are laws on volunteerism, donations, and sponsorship. These are not great, but they are good for the first time they actually had a set of laws about volunteering. MIM specifically has helped the Roma NGOs. They specifically try to strengthen their capacities by giving the basic public relations training, how to effectively use the internet, and develop communication plans and strategy. They would help within these new projects but then continue after the projects were completed.

There is cooperation between the state and NGOs who have worked with transparency and accountability to media. The new law is on State Accountability and Free Access to Public Information. Specifically, MIM gives

• training to the responsible people in government agencies to give them information on how to give the public information.
• handbooks to the government so they can be more independent, well trained, and able to understand the law and what their (government agencies) responsibility is.
• handbooks for journalists and how they can get the info allowed to them by the law.

When they train government officials, they made sure to clarify to me that they do not train them for “spin”  but how to be responsible when talking to the press and the public in order to give them the most information. They currently have a pool of 20 trainers for any topic.

MIM has also created a diploma program on media, their School of Journalism and Public Relations, where you can get a BA degree. About 90% of their graduates are working in the media field, one is even a editor-in-chief. They are currently trying to establish a post graduate program with help from UNESCO, but it is still in the works.

They make productions and documentaries for public outreach programs. They produce weekly interviews on Radio Free Europe, highlighting the interesting news of the week. And they are able to get the highest or most relevant person due to the interest of the program. They also preforming public outreach programs (usually as part of the re-grants they receive). The most recent re-granting program they have is with NGOs and media providers. Most NGOs choose to publicize their organization but they are supposed to be result oriented joint with a media outlet. That way, if no one else will publicize their documentary or findings, at least that one media organization will. This produced about 150 documentaries, as well as stories, inserts and videos. Then they created a Civil Society Video Fest, they have only had one year so far, but they received no other funding to continue the program and thus they had to shut down the program. Some non-profits helped with the film fest,

When asked if it was easy or difficult to meet with government officials, they responded that it was a bit easier because they have managed to keep an image of a neutral and fair organization. They are also seen as being professional based on science not politics. Many others want to work with them so it is easier to work with the government. Most times state institutions come to them for help. However, they “don’t really want to work with the state” because it isn’t their main focus.

They have had bad relations in the past, such as lobby issuing a paper on changing laws on broadcasting overnight because they weren’t happy with the content and speed. The government took no help or information, and since they have a majority. In September, they came and asked to sit and talk on how to overcome the problems. They had a meeting to form an action plan with priorities to overcome their problems. Currently, they are working together to finalize the report on media in MK. There is a lot of opposition to bring them together to one table (they often refuse to talk to each other).

MK society is polarized politically with different parties who are supposed to make reforms. These reforms are not happening- instead they are focusing on the “bizarre dispute” with Greece over their name. After the most recent EU progress report,the government struck back. They (the government) claimed that reality is different on the ground than what the EU sees. The government prefers to rely more on the US rather than the EU- the government (and possibly the people’s) trust is gone in the EU. The government feels that the EU is not contributing to solving the problem, but rather increasing the pressure on MK to solve the problems.

The NGO sector is affected by political parties, such as the Soros Foundation funding and other funding options. MIM is funded by USAID and the Danish School of Journalism. Yet they also make some money from the school they run. The NGO sector is affected by the NGOGO, which appear usually right before the elections. Many of the NGOGOs have no experience being an NGO or participating in the civil society constructively.

Most NGOs are not grassroots organizations, but can come together in times of trouble. The public perception of NGOs (which is nourished by the government) is that they are mainly money laundering machines, or spies of international organizations. Most people in MK have a lower lever of education, so they are “easier to manipulate” and draw into the conspiracy theory. In addition, the channels of communication are controlled by the government and the media, there is often just a way to use the media as a way to promote the government.

There is, MIM claims, an nonconstructive environment for change. It is difficult to get people to even start to talk, they seem stuck behind the lines. They hope to change this in the future and at least get people to talk with each other. If they see that debate is normal the people will be more likely to talk with each other. Since there are no debates for any elections, and essentially no constructive communication MK politics and life lacks a critical discourse.

Most often laws and the media are used solely as propaganda tools by the government. Such as the recent case of the A1 television station. They were charged with tax evasion, and while no one claims that they did not evade on their taxes, so did everyone else, but only the opposition station was shut down. Most members of parliament own TV stations, allowing the stations to act as a mouthpiece of the government. There are now 3 main national broadcasters.

MIM hopes to change this by training NGOs understand the transparency laws and hope that will help to combat the perceptions as they talk with journalists. MIM likes to train NGOs to know who writes about their subjects in the news, so that they can directly reach out to their contacts in the media to get their stories out rather than a general newscaster.

YES Foundation

My next visit was to YES Foundation an NGO/foundation that “seeks to strengthen the local innovation system in Macedonia by stimulating to practical entrepreneurship among the youth by offering complementary activities that will ease the start-up of new ventures.” This was by far my shortest meeting- barely over one hour. Unlike others that I had interviewed or talked to, they barely volunteered any information.

They told me in my interview that they are a business incubator who currently supports 16 different companies in the IT (information technology)  field. They try to stimulate entrepreneurship and help young people create new job positions by establishing their own businesses. They usually try to focus on young people ages 18-30 or 35 who are highly educated.

It is difficult to start a business in MK, and more so when they tried to start their foundation. Business incubation was very unknown when they started. People did not understand what it was supposed to do. But now people are starting to come to them when they want to start a business. They have received this renown because they have started making presentations with in the different faculties. Some of their other advertisements include: information on websites geared towards businesses, hosting big events such as start up weekends, or offering several trainings a month. Some of the trainings are about how to get others to get to know your company, others are about creating social networks to “network” for your business. They like to combine traditional ways of promotion with adhoc ways.

While technically they serve the entire country, mostly they focus on Skopje due to the location of the government and the fact that most people come to Skopje to start businesses. When businesses come to them for help, they have to be IT oriented. If they are not, they will refer them to other organizations. When helping businesses start, they like to provide fully furnished office space with lower rent and utilities. They are able to offer mentoring, consultant work, and trainings.

They are totally financed by international organizations- they receive no MK funding. Much of their fiances stopped last year and they are currently looking for new sources of funding. They had received 1,000 Euros a few years ago from the MK government, but it was a one time thing. While the government has some grants intended to support new businesses, the amount is too small to make any real difference.

However, the space that they currently use was donated to them free of rent for 10 years. It used to be barracks for the Ministry of Education. (I do believe that there was a miss communication with what a barrack is in English- these are right next to a few school building- but I could be wrong, I just wasn’t comfortable asking.) They have been using the facility for 4 to 5 years now. There is a possibility to extend the contract, but they are unsure of how big of a possibility that is. In addition, the government does provide support at their events, with an appearance of a minister or so. The government might not have the money to financially support YES, but they do support their mission with public appearances, according to YES. They can maintain regular contact with the municipalities and the Ministry of Economy and they are able to work with specific people in these ministries often.

There have been changes in the civil society sector since they have been in existence. Most of them have to do with the change in mentality and perception of NGOs. Some NGOs and the citizens have negative experiences with donors money and how the NGOs implement to proposed projects. This has lead to the perception that NGOs are just there to steal other people’s money and not do anything to help the citizens.The public often believes that they will get robbed if they donate money or participate in events. Or even that too many events are too expensive for what you get.  A positive change has been the increase in local support from the government.

The fact that YES is technically a foundation means that there is a difference in public opinion to them compared to your average NGO. People believe that all foundations have lots of money, while YES often struggles to make ends meet. There are some commercial sponsors who are looking at helping them out, but YES has to fight against the foundation ideal.

On a day to day basis they are occupied with helping the companies that have questions. Many people walked into the office where I was interviewing the head project managers asking questions. They are currently focused on organizing more events and implementing the projects that they have funding for. There big upcoming events (well, they were upcoming at the time of the interview, but have in fact already occurred by the time of publishing) are Start-Up Weekend and Global Entrepreneurship Week. Global Entrepreneurship week was established by Kaufman and more than 100 countries participate each year. This year they will have Business Speed Dating (where you can quickly summarize what your business is about to others), Panel Discussions, and Group Discussions.

We had a discussion about how one goes about starting and ending a business in MK- and the process is lengthy. There is no good way to end a business or NGO. If you are bankrupt, there is nothing like Chapter 11, you even have to pay the government to shut down. This stems from the days of privatization where people would start a business to get the government’s old job and then promptly close and take all of the money. Therefore, there are many business and NGOs officially on the books, but who in practice do not operate.

When asked if there was anything else they wish I or the public knew, they actually had an answer! They wish they were able to inform the public more about their efforts. In the past three years alone, they have helped to crease over 120 jobs. They also wish that the government was more aware of their progress, and thus maybe more generous with their money. They believe that entrepreneurship should be a focus of the government because it has the potential to help the economy of Macedonia. MK is 20 years past the previous system, and they need to change the perceptions that socialism laid in people (and they are passing on to their children.

LOJA in Tetovo

My next meeting was with LOJA in Tetovo. They were having a German Film fest and invited me to watch the film fest as well as interview them. Loja mean games in Albanian, and traces it back to how their NGO got started. Essentially they help with video production for cross cultural discussion. There are 7 people who work at the NGO, 5 of who are local in Tetovo, and one is from Germany (not sure who the other person is, just realized that it only added up to six).

In 1999, while they were directing and rehearsing a play and they could see all of the refugees from the Kosovo crisis. (Need some reminding on what exactly happened? Click here.) The people who later formed LOJA, decided to become involved and to do something for the kids who were suffering. They were playing games to help the kids forget what they had seen. After the refugee camp was moved, they decided to continue the work. They were being told that there was peace, but the founders kept seeing a different story on the ground. They wanted to help prevent a crisis situation from developing. So they decided to create an NGO to help maintain the change. In 2001, they felt the changes in the ethnic group before the tension escalated. Their target community is the youth, because they are easier to change when shown the benefits of cooperation. Where LOJA is known (such as in Tetovo) the community is very responsive to their efforts, but they face resistance from other communities.

From 2000-2004 they worked on the Babylon projects, whom they shared office space with.These were the first attempts in non-formal intervention. It is different in a post-conflict society than a society before the conflict. They are trying to reach their aims and help groups be resistant to extremists. But their work can be destroyed within hours. They are trying to give messages that will stick through and after the fights that people are going to have. They try to bring people together who share things in common, rather than what separates them. (They are teachers/journalists/workers rather than Albanian or Macedonian.) Part of this cooperation involved creating the following video:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/r3muc80-Poo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Currently, they run 4-5 projects per month and are the only ethnically mixed organization in MK. There are other organizations that have both ethnicity’s (or all) but they are either All Albanians or Macedonians in higher positions, with the opposite in lower positions. At LOJA both Macedonians and Albanians are equal.  They work mainly with culture. When I talked to them in October, they had 4 projects they were working on:

1. extra-circular activities for future teachers. This one has been running for 4 years. They provide training and direct workshops. LOJA also runs small pilot projects with different ethnic groups.
2. Robert Bauch Tifgen (possible spelling errors, because I could not find anything related to many different spellings of this name) cultural activities, such as with the media to try to create different resources.
3. Franco-German youth exchange as a resource center for South Eastern Europe
4. In cooperation with a Swiss group- network of participation with cultural memories. To provide different perceptions of history. Bring reasons why to cooperate and to do so through art.

LOJA is often critical towards the governments view of civil society (in this case, I mean the real government not the party in power). Mike (my contact) believes that it is more complicated due to the mixed groups, than the government gives on. There is a difference between the government’s discourse vs. the actuality on the ground. The government/party in power believes that if you are not for this particular government, then you are against it.

LOJA has never gotten any money from the government, and they are dependent on external funds. They are now able to self finance. They often offer training abroad for training (and they get some extra salary out of it). They have been working in the public sector for 9 years, yet they are the only cinema in Tetovo. There is no public cinema in Tetovo. In addition, the government is in charge of cleaning up the trash on the streets. (In MK, they have big trash containers on the street and everyone brings their trash to these like they would a big dumpster in the US. Sometimes these are over-flowing.) Right in front of LOJA, there is one of these set of trash cans. Usually it is over flowing, and they do not clean it up until the day after any LOJA event. LOJA thinks this is on purpose.

There are no big cultural events in Tetovo, none sponsored by the municipality even with partial support. When the municipality does support something, no one sees where it goes, it is suggested that sometimes that it lines the pockets of the officials, or fictive projects. Mike states that the government is discriminatory towards non ethnic Macedonians. The state will enforce laws, only the negative ones. Mike claims that the government needs external support to change the laws and how they are enforced. Further, Mike claims, the government is doing very little to help bridge the gap ethnicities, sometimes they even cause the problems. Thus, this part of the government’s job is left in the hands of civil society and international organizations.

When the 2001 crisis occurred, the Ohrid agreement ignored the basic problems. The current government, Mike alleges, will miss the opportunity afforded by this agreement if they continue on the same path. While in theory, the framework has been implemented, the policing infrastructure has not been fully changed due to problems in finances.

After the interview, we attended a movie event sponsored by the German Embassy. It was the first movie of the week long event. They had translated the German into both Albanian and Macedonian. They also had the German Ambassador’s speech translated by different women into both Albanian and Macedonian. They are very careful to have both ethnicities represented. After the movie, they had a small reception with food and juice provided. Many people mingled, but it did appear that they were in separate friend groups.

“My fear,” Mike finished with, “intuition, suspicion tells me that this government will break Macedonia so it makes no sense.”

Volunteer Center Skopje

My very first productive meeting was with the Volunteer Center Skopje is a youth based volunteer center that tries to “give non-formal educational possibilities to the young people in different fields, in local and international level, to promote the idea of volunteerism and to connect young people without reference to their nationality, religion, political economical, or social status. We are putting effort to develop a multicultural civil society, to reinforce the existing democratic structure, to enhance the affirmation of young people through their individual abilities and skills and to connect the young people with the purpose of their closer cooperation.” (Website of Volunteer Center Skopje on 10/14).

I meet with my contact at the Volunteer Center (VCS) the same day I emailed them- talk about good impressions! Ben, as I will call him, once again to disguise his identity. (As a note, I am choosing Western names rather than other Macedonian names so that I do not accidentally choose someone who works at their company.) Their office is located in Kisela Voda, a neighborhood in Skopje, in an apartment building up a few floors. Their office is located, like many others, in a renovated apartment. From what I could tell, there were 4 separate rooms: 2 private offices, a kitchen and meeting room, and a open area with a few desks. (This could be off, as I was not given a tour). We went into the kitchen/meeting room, where there was a big table with chairs all around and tons of informational and hand-drawn posters on the wall. There was also an exit to the small balcony they had as well. On one side there was a fridge, with sink and stove.  

What the Volunteer Center Skopje does, in Ben’s terms, is to help develop skill through field work of people aged 18-30 who can volunteer in different European Countries. They host EVS, European Voluntary Service (which is like a European Peace Corps), volunteers. They also give out grants to help create “bridging projects”- projects who bridge the gap between ethnicity's. They also focus on producing a youth journal and help with children’s centers. They really want to help bring people together. Ben acknowledges that it is difficult to reach the older people who are set in their ways but rather the youth. It is better to get to know other cultures, Ben states, and live by yourself as a youth, but it is difficult to get money for living alone and becoming independent.

The European Union has spent money to help with the idea of volunteerism, even declaring 2011 as the Year of Volunteering. The EU is trying to help with youth unemployment and avoid the protests and uprising they had recently seen; they wanted to give them something productive to do. The program is also trying to help youth gain skills for more opportunities in labor after they return to their home country. The EU believes that this program will help with increasing mobility and helping the youth find jobs internationally. Ben and the Volunteer Center Skopje have tried to bring the volunteering program to Skopje and to increase the activism of youth here in Macedonia. While their program is slowly increasing, Ben believes there is room for more growth in the area of volunteerism.

They have started a program that is to help “develop and implement local youth strategies. This program is a pilot program in the Balkans- no other country has yet to attempt this sort of connection with the youth and their neighborhoods. In the city of Skopje there are 10 municipalities/neighborhoods. So the VCS worked with the local communities and government offices to create focus groups that will develop an access plan for activities. They were checking their newly created plans through public opinion and the top 5 were focused on for creating a volunteer project. They then organized activities to help them engage with the local community. Currently, there are even more projects in development.

Ben believes that volunteerism helps with creating a civil society. It can help to create a “real or normal civil society.” Ben believes that civil society exists only on paper in MK; however, young people have the right to change the government. NGOs in general started moving towards working on civil society in the last 5 years. Before that they were connected with politics or not really functioning. When faced with the question of what has changed in the past few years to show an increase in the movement towards the civil society sector vs. politics, Ben had some real quick answers.

• The internet. Before it was a real privilege to have internet due to the cost. Now about 60-70% of all Macedonians have affordable internet. Yet, people are still experiencing how to use the internet, because it is so new.
• Until 2009, the EU was off limits due to the prohibitive costs of visas. So, people could not see anything outside of the Balkans. Only about 5% had been outside of the area before 2005. Now costs have been seriously cut, and a visa liberation agreement has been implemented, allowing those with a bio-chip passport could travel freely to the Schengen Visa area.
• Laws have changed. They have changed the target groups and the cost of running an NGO to make it easier. Basically, if you have a new idea for an NGO you can start it.
• There are more opportunities where you can become engaged in your community now.

Yet, and this is a big yet, young people’s interest is still very small. The attitude of service is missing from the discussion. Ben points out the difference between MK and the Netherlands/Belgium where volunteering is part of the curriculum. Recently VCS held a conference with the Red Cross on how to involve NGOs and other local organizations if there is a problem in Skopje. The Law of Crisis Management allows this sort of cooperation, and they began to plan how to connect the state and non-state actors. The only problem is trust- neither side trusts the other, which will impede emergency response after a disaster.

I also learned a new term “ngogo” standing for Non-Governmental organization/governmental organization, or “non governmental-governmental organization. Yea, that boggles the brain, does it not? This may be endemic to other areas around the world- I do not doubt it, but I only heard of it once I got to MK. There is a perception here, as mentioned before that if you take money from the government you are connected with the government/party. Ben wanted to stress that you could be part of the party that was not in power and yet still need to work with the current government. Sometimes NGOs avoid working with the government just to be able to say that they are not connected with the government- and so that there is no perception of working with the government, Ben suggests. However, NGOs/civil society and the government need to “[work] together to develop a good society.” Furthermore, “only by working together can we get somewhere.” In the past the government worked better with civil society, but then the party in power changed. The new government consideres that if there are good things that the NGO has to say about the government, then they are part of the goernment (it is considered); if they say bad things about the government, then they are considred part of the opposition.

VCS works with the local municipalities. When Ben and others go to speak with the government, they can reach the representatives that they “have to deal with.” Then after the local representatives, they move on to the state level, but they are more oriented towards the local level, where their programs take place. Ben finds it very difficult to speak with the national government, but it is Very Important to not “jump steps” in the chain of command. (Also, when I saw government, they think only the national government. The local government is called a municipality.)

There is a new local authority- with a law on decentralization. The national government is transferring more power to the local government. There are different taxes now (70%national, 30% local) than they were before. Currently the government depend on non-governmental organizations for development, but the government needs to begin to help with development themselves.
In addition to the government, the youth needs to change how they use their free time and turn it into quality time. They need to stop spending all of their time in cafes or on the internet. When asked how to change their perspectives Ben sounded like any US parent or couch

• get out of the house
• Get off the internet
• they need to go outside and play, get some fresh air, get physical

Ben told me that UNICEF tried to work with high school and elementary school students, but UNICEF claimed that it was too difficult because they needed “permits.” And Ben claimed, they were too afraid to make the connections because elementary students are managed by the local government and the high schools are managed by the national government.Ben suggests that the government let NGOs complete volunteer activities with the local elementary schools and then help the students move through the different processes.

Yet, VCS needs local government cooperation to fully integrate their projects. The problem is the “start,” you have to start somewhere. The information needs to be given on time to the students, they need to know their is an opportunity where they are needed and how to become active. The government and NGOs need to be built from below. It is more difficult to organize if the government is planning the event. There is too much bureaucracy, Ben claims, to be effective. Also, the enthusiasm will be curbed if the government is involved. Ben asserts that the NGOs need to become ore active in the city.

Further “Balkan countries can offer a lot, but due to disputes [with neighbors] they are discouraged,” Ben states. Ben believes that the world sees the Balkans as primitive. On order to create a more stable climate, the countries of the Balkans have to agree amongst themselves first. The future is not about joining the EU, but about How they join the EU.

As far as I can tell, from the numerous e-mails that I have received from VCS after my meeting, that they are very good at recruiting volunteers to the EVS program mentioned above. They have also had a meeting or two about the magazine they produce (I can’t wait to see how it comes out soon). This is one of the NGOs I hope to volunteer with. I am waiting on a response to see when I can volunteer with them.

Meetings, Meetings Galore!

After this meeting, there was a long string of no contact, while I waited and guessed how long is long enough to give people who “don’t check their emails once a day or once a week” time to look at said emails. When I passed the one month mark, I caved. I contacted Gazmend, who is our main contact at the Embassy, and he put me in contact with someone else at the embassy and within 2 hours I had a list of all the NGOs that the Embassy had funded in 2010-2012 through 2 grant cycles. I had been wary about contacting Gazmend because I didn’t want to use my

And guess what? These people have emails, answer them, and even follow up with phone calls! I was pleasantly shocked! Within 24 hours I had four meetings set up, one completed, and tentative plans for a few others!

These organizations range from business incubators, environmental watch dogs, the Red Cross, women’s organizations, Human right institutes, regional centers for NGOs, and a youth group. I will be chronically these meetings over the next few weeks, but since my notes are extensive, each one will more than likely take about 2-3 hours or more to write. Read: I have over 20 double sided 5” x 7” hand written pages about my meetings. I do promise that I will write about all of my meetings. I promise.

„Акција Здруженска“ or “Akcija Zdruzhenska

I had sent out about 30-40 emails to different organizations in Macedonia, mainly women’s non-governmental organizations. I got one response in three weeks. Later I called the main organization I wanted to work with before I got over here to follow up on my email and they said “Yes we got your email” *pause* “We will respond with in the day. Sorry.” Needless to say, I just met with them and didn’t offer to actually complete any other in person research, which is sad, because they are one of the best online organized companies and I had great hopes, but if that is how they actually treat people offering free labor and their sense of business response then I would go stir crazy within one day there!

But back to the organization that responded the first time I tried to reach them, the only one remember. Their name is „Акција Здруженска“ or “Akcija Zdruzhenska” which means “Women’s Action Association” roughly. According to their website they: “Akcija Zdruzenska works on strengthening and developing the women’s movement in Macedonia, competent in terms of women’s human rights and gender equality issues, in compliance with the global commitments and needs in this field. Organization’s basic determination is to strengthen knowledge, skills and ability for identifying and reacting to the specific needs in Macedonia in the light of gender equality.”

I meet with almost their entire office staff, and in a effort to maintain anonymity, I will be quote them without referencing who they were. This research took place on October 3, 2011 at 10am Skopje time. They had given me the address, but since I couldn’t find it on a map, I got into a cab and told the cab driver the address. He looks at me and starts to pull out his map. I then start to laugh and offer to call the people I am meeting and have him talk to them. They were very willing and told him where to go, since he understood the directions, off we went!

On our way there, he started asking me questions about what I was doing in Skopje, what I thought of the country, and so on. I am pretty sure I got across that I was studying on a US Embassy grant, but separate from the embassy and that I would be here for 9 months, and that I had almost been in the country for one month. Also, that I really liked Skopje and the people were really nice! We arrived safely at our destination, which was this itty bitty little street that was on the map, but not labeled (I found this out when I went back home to see where I had been.)

When I got into their office, they offered me tea or coffee like everyone does around here, but all I wanted was some water. I had brainstormed a few questions to ask them, but I didn’t really need them. I asked a few open ended questions and just nodded (thanks Dr. Fewkes for teaching me that interviewing tip!) and we talked for almost 2 hours before they had to go for a meeting with some official.

I met with four women in the room, and we sat at a boardroom style table with many chairs around it. There were bookcases filled with books, publications, printed papers, and flyers lining the wall immediately across from the door way. The room was small, holding only the table, chairs and bookcase, but the space was well utilized. Off one side there was a small balcony where they often went to smoke. I counted four rooms, including the meeting room, two offices with many desks in there and a small kitchen off the side of boardroom. All of the rooms were small by American standards, and even a bit small by Macedonian standards, but still well maintained and nice for office space.

The main lady I talked to, we will call her Sally, is the one almost all of the quotes are attributed to. She was fluent in English, well almost fluent. Every now and then she had to ask the others for a word or two, but other than that, perfect!

Sally sees the NGOs in Macedonia (MK) as an intermediary between the government and society. Akcija Zdruzenska is more of a lobbying organization than direct services organization. They like to support local women’s organizations and try to bring their voices to a national level.

Their main problem is with access to information and the cooperation between NGOs and local governments. Sally claims that the government (and by this, she usually means the national government) is only open for cooperation on certain projects that they initiate. Then, the projects become a way of perceiving the achievement of the government (and thus the party) rather than the individual NGOs or the cooperation between the two. Sally claims that after the project is over, the government will forget about the NGO.

Akcija Zdruzenska wants to monitor the implementation and development of policies that try to identify the gaps between the legal situation and the actual situation. The government is not happy, Sally claims, with their NGO due to the critical nature of their work. Yet, still Akcija Zdruzenska works towards standardizing cooperation with the government, on paper at least. But in practice, the standardization has a long way to go. A few of the questions that must be answered are Who represents civil society to the government or the public? How can the NGOs network or cooperate? Which platforms do they all support?

The government would work with an organization for a few years to provide advice or services. Sometimes the government would even provide funding to these (other) organizations, then elections would come and they would switch to a different organization, often times created specifically for this purpose, that would promote the parties ideals with no hesitation if the original organization would not support their campaign.

Speaking of elections and the government, “neither the issue of gender equality or women’s rights are not treated the way they should be treated in these platforms.” They have tried to create issue based platforms but the problem, in their eyes, is that many of the other NGOs that believe in the same thing they do are not very well developed. Their problems in creating a group of women’s NGOs has lead to an even further “lack of solidarity between women’s groups” which is problematic since they all compete for funding from very limited sources.

Sally said that the European Union has been pushing for an mechanism of formal cooperation between NGOs/civil society and the government, but it only recently ended with a Code of Conduct. That was for the National government, but it is different with the local government because they are more independent.

We then switched gears (and this interview took place when I was still searching for just women’s groups to work with, so some of the questions are along that line, like the ones that follow) to discuss women’s rights in Macedonia. Sally claims that women’s rights is not high on the agenda for the current government, that it is present in the discussion at all because someone is asking about it. Women rights groups receive almost no funding from the government, the only funding comes from international donors. On paper there is a law against sex or gender discrimination, but not in practice since there is no monitoring of their . There is a “huge gap between promises and expectation.”

Sally believes that the government discounts women’s NGOs as lacking the ability to actually implement changes. Even though on paper, the women’s groups across the country have a large list of supporters, the government only reaches out to them at election time. Further, the governments believes that the women’s NGOs are not even relevant to the discussion since they lack knowledge about the ‘real world.’ The first women’s NGOs were not feminist in nature and could not even be called a movement, according to Sally. In the beginning, women’s NGOs were the largest in number, but their limited success (legally) was due to a lack of specifically requested rights. Sally even claims that some NGOs ended up in or with the structures they were working against (a hierarchy of sorts).

On top of all of difficulty outlined above, it is even more difficult to mobilize around a specific issue. An example they provided was abortion a few years ago. Different organizations tried to go to the streets to collect signatures, but it was hard to mobilize people for public speaking or even standing together. When pressed for why it was so difficult, they theorized that people were not ready to be publicly challenging the government. As well as the relative ease of being linked to the opposition of the current party in power. The government (read party, for this discussion) also began funding specific NGOs that no one had heard of before that specifically supported the government side of the issue, no other ones were funded. In fact, this is a problem that they saw in the NGo sector: NGOs that pop up around elections to support a specific cause and then disappear immediately after it.

With a specific focus on the national government/party in power, they believe that the government is pro-life/pro-family. The government has begun to roll back many of the success that the women’s rights movement had made in the past few years, or rather these success stories are being seen as being “taken away” by the legislature and are now seen as “highly problematic.” It is forbidden to mention sexual orientation and gender in the legal government. However, the current party in power, VMRO, has added religious eduction in school even though MK is supposed to be a secular country, Sally alleged.

In a policy to increase the birth rate and population of MK, the government has started to reward parents for having a 4th or 5th child.They will receive ⅔ of their expenses, which is higher than most salaries.  It was meant to only be for the areas were birthrate is low (AKA ethnic Macedonians only), but the constitutional court ruled that this was unconstitutional. Now the government only give extra money for the 3rd child only for 18 years, and it is 70% of the average salary. In addition, if the woman has never worked outside of the home, but raised 3 or 4 kids when she reaches 62 she is entitled to a full pension. Sally called this “crazy!” [Meaning I think, the idea that she would get a full pension if she works only as a mother and that if you do not have children that you are NOT entitled to a pension.]

Sally says that the new government is trying to keep a low profile but traditional values and the role of the family is emphasized to the detriment of transgendered individuals. The government is creating a hostile environment, Sally charges.

There have been numerous challenges to the different laws in MK, meaning that the government is trying to change the law that is on the book, rather than from the public against a law. Such as the attempt to define marriage (as between a man and a woman), while there is a definition of this in the Family Law section, the government wanted it in the Constitution.

There is a gap between men and women’s rights. At least in the implementation, as well as in the law. Sally suggested that this could be a hold over from the Socialist past where people were declared equal (even when they were not). She also claimed that many women did not know that they were not equal. Many people perceive that men and women are currently equal. In addition, there are other issues that are considered more important- such as ethnic minorities- before women’s rights are considered.

Yet, Sally and the others wanted to point out that there are connections between the different  forms of discrimination and that if the political discourse was open about one form (ethnicity) it should also apply to the other forms (sex, gender, etc). Since marginalized groups are not considered important to women’s issues, it is even harder to get women’s rights on the political agenda.

Sally suggested...
- that networks of women’s organizations be formed to facilitate discussion and interaction to better serve the women of MK.
- organizations should help the government formulate laws, but not produce them with in the NGO because they do not have the jobs or resources
- organizations should demand that the government do it’s own job and develop policy (currently she believes this is done outside of the government by many organizations who produce the laws and then give it to the government members, who present it to parliament.)
-there should be more cooperation with collecting the public opinion to write legislation.

Since they view themselves as a ‘watch dog style’ organization, it is very hard to fund raise and requires institutional funding (which they d not have). Institutional funding would give Akcija flexibility in the business affairs to do their job properly.

Also, Sally believes that the government (especially the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy) believe that that they have an “open door policy” and that is enough forms of cooperation. That organizations should come to them, rather that the Ministry going to different organizations. Sally believes that the government needs to be proactive in consultations where exist. That the government invites a few different NGOs for a few hours and then say they have consulted with the NGO sector.

vacation

I am sorry I was not here or publishing for the last week. I was sick and then took a vacation to Croatia that I had planned for over a month!

Expect some updates soon!