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Author: WeBalkans

EU continues to help the Roma community in Montenegro

Written by WeBalkans on . Posted in News.

During November, the European Union in Montenegro and the Council of Europe have helped the Roma-Egyptian community in Montenegro to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 virus. Help was provided through their joint ROMACTED programme in collaboration with the national partner organisation, Young Roma. Support was provided to the Roma and Egyptian community in the municipalities of Bar, Berane, Bijelo Polje, and Herceg Novi.

 

In Bijelo Polje, 70 Roma families received aid packages, which included food, personal hygiene products, baby food, sweets, and cosmetics. In Herceg Novi, 71 families received 100 aid packages, and in Berane, based on personal requests of individuals, in order to facilitate work and improve sources of income, 125 pieces of tools were provided for 50 users. In Bar, 12 RE high school students received vouchers worth up to €100 to buy clothes, shoes or school textbooks.

 

“Given that the coronavirus affects the income and living standard of the Roma community, which is the most vulnerable group of the population, and whose financial possibilities are limited, it was decided to re-grant aid through several sets of measures. The Young Roma NGO will continue to help the Roma community in the coming period in accordance with the project tasks and opportunities, and to fight for the improvement of their position in all areas,” said Samir Jaha, Executive Director of the Young Roma NGO.

 

From March to the end of November, 626 Roma families in Bar, Bijelo Polje, Herceg Novi, Nikšić, Tivat and Ulcinj received assistance packages under the ROMACTED programme worth around €36,000.

 

The ROMACTED project is designed to build political will and sustainable policies of local government participation and encourage the empowerment of local Roma communities. ROMACTED is funded by the Council of Europe and the European Union, while the Young Roma NGO is a partner organisation in its implementation. The programme is being implemented in seven Western Balkan countries and Turkey. In Montenegro, this programme is implemented in eight municipalities: Bar, Berane, Bijelo Polje, Herceg Novi, Nikšić, Podgorica, Tivat,  and Ulcinj.

The first hackathon dedicated to climate change in Montenegro

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Montenegro’s first edition of the Climathon, a worldwide environmental competition dedicated to climate change, will be organised in Podgorica on 28 and 29 November. It will be a 24-hour-long hackathon, in which participants will propose innovative solutions to urban problems related to the climate crisis. The Montenegro Climathon is being organised by the Gnijezdo (meaning ‘nest’) NGO, under the auspices of the European Union Delegation to Montenegro and in cooperation with the City of Podgorica, Erste Bank, the Ministry of Science, the Montenegro Chamber of Commerce, the Petrović Njegoš Foundation, Telenor, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).  
Anyone between the ages of 15 and 45 can apply and applicants are allowed to form teams of up to five members. Each team can apply with one idea, with priority given to teams with new ideas and solutions that have not been presented at and/or funded through other competitions.  
So far, Climathon has been organised on six continents, in 56 countries and 145 cities. It was launched in 2015 by Climate-KIC, the environmental branch of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which is a European Union body, to enable local institution representatives to come together with citizens and jointly propose solutions to the environmental challenges that their communities face.  
The Delegation of the European Union to Montenegro has decided to support this unique event in Podgorica because the fight against climate change is one of the EU’s main priorities.  
“We are facing the consequences of climate change on the global, national, but also the local level. That is why it is the obligation of all of us to contribute to the fight against climate change, and the starting points can actually be events like this one. We are pleased that Climathon is now being organised in Montenegro and we are sure that it will give birth to many great ideas, which will make the capital an even better and healthier place to live,” the Delegation said.  
Teams can develop educational programmes, software solutions or any new product or service which would make Podgorica a cleaner city, and which they want to implement. In addition to cash prizes, the best solutions will receive UNDP support and mentorship for the further development and implementation of ideas after the completion of the competition.

The Head of the EU Office in Kosovo / EU Special Representative Tomáš Szunyog visits Kosovo’s northern municipalities

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The municipalities of Zvečan/Zveçan and Zubin Potok were the focus of today’s visit to northern Kosovo by EU Ambassador Szunyog. He visited various projects and other sites in the north and met with local authorities. Ambassador Szunyog discussed the region’s tourism potential, support to entrepreneurs, and green economic development with the Mayor of Zubin Potok, Srđan Vulović.

 

The two officials discussed the current political and security situation, and the significance of the Gazivode/Ujmani lake for the municipality and Kosovo as a whole. Ambassador Szunyog commended the efforts of local authorities in preserving inter-community cooperation and in providing a regional safe house for victims of domestic violence.

 

In Zvečan/Zveçan the EU Ambassador also visited the regional Savina Stena landfill, funded by the EU with €5 million. The landfill is to be completed in early 2021, and with significant improvements to waste management, the environment and citizens’ health it will serve the people of four northern Kosovan municipalities – Leposavić/Leposaviq, North Mitrovica, Zvečan/Zveçan and Zubin Potok. The landfill has a surface area of 26,000m2and a capacity of 300,000m3.

 

The EU is also financing the purchase of eight waste collection trucks and over 880 waste containers, worth a total of €1 million, for all four municipalities. In addition, the EU will soon launch a new project constructing waste collection points. The total value of all EU support in this sector in northern Kosovo is €7.5 million.

The EU Office in Kosovo/ EUSR joins global campaign for the elimination of violence against women

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The 16 Days of Activism Global Campaign against Gender-Based Violence was launched in Gjakova/Ðakovica today by Ambassador Tomáš Szunyog, the EU Special Representative / Head of the EU Office in Kosovo. Ambassador Szunyog and Ardian Gjini, Mayor of Gjakova/Ðakovica municipality, marked the beginning of the campaign in a ceremony at the municipal offices.

 

At the launch ceremony, Ambassador Szunyog said that: “Survivors must be at the centre of the policies. They need to feel that they are not alone. Domestic and gender-based violence affects the whole society, so all of us should be involved in eliminating it. The EU remains committed to supporting Kosovo in ending violence against women, even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

 

Ambassador Szunyog also visited the shelter for survivors of gender-based violence and joined the lighting up in orange of the Terzi and Tabak bridges. He was accompanied by Ulrika Richardson, UN Development Coordinator; Vlora Tuzi Nushi, Head of UN Women; and Maria Suokko, the United Nations Development Programme Resident Representative.

 

This year, the traditional UN campaign on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women started amid reports that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased domestic violence across the world. COVID-19 triggered this year’s global theme “Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!”.

EU4AGRI project latest call offers BAM 3.5 million in support to agriculture in Bosnia and Herzegovina

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EU4AGRI is a four-year (2020-2024) European Union project valued at BAM 20.25 million that aims to modernise the agri-food sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The project is jointly implemented and co-financed with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in BiH and the Czech Development Agency.
 
The latest EU4AGRI call is open to individuals, entrepreneurs, cooperatives and companies actively engaged in primary agricultural production in sectors such as milk production, meat production, cereal farming, fruit cultivation (including wine and olive growing), vegetable cultivation and egg production.  
The aim of the call is to support the achievement of sustainable agriculture and introduction of good practices, as well as the creation of new jobs – and the retention of existing ones. The total available funds for this public call amount to BAM 3.5 million. Each applicant can submit an application for funds between BAM 30,000 and BAM 200,000. For every investment, the applicant must secure co-financing of between 20% and 35% of the total value of the proposed investment. The deadline for submission of applications is 15.00 on 15 February 2021.

The EU continues to help BiH to improve its education system with new €2.6 million project

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In the past 15 years, educational reforms have been implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a focus on strengthening higher, general, vocational and adult education. However, several surveys – as well as the latest report of the European Commission – point to a large disparity between the knowledge and skills of jobseekers coming out of the education system, and the needs of the labour market.  
Within the “Education for Employment” project launched today, the European Union is providing €2.6 million to assist BiH authorities in improving capacity and structures for planning the educational process and the quality of educational outcomes. The project will address existing shortcomings, given the mismatch between education and training systems and the needs of the labour market. The project will provide this support through the development of modern lifelong career guidance services, as well as better higher education and vocational education and training.  
“On behalf of the European Union, I am very glad to kick off this project which will address very relevant areas of education in BiH, in particular the reform of teacher training and the development of a model for monitoring of progress of reform processes based on external assessments of education systems through international tests of students such as PISA, PIRLS, and TIMMS,” said Gianluca Vannini, Head of the Operations Section for Social Development, Civil Society and Cross-Border Cooperation in the EU Delegation to BiH.
 
The “Education for Employment” project will help strengthen staff capacity in the Ministry of Education, agencies, pedagogical institutes and schools so they will be able to make regular assessments of the situation in the education sector and use the results of this assessment for research and the planning of educational policies. This will further enable experts in the education sector to analyse and transform the results of external testing of students conducted both nationally and internationally.  
In addition, the project will address the further development of entrepreneurial competencies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, initiating a policy discussion, as well as offering pilot activities in the field of digital competencies. It will last for 30 months and is extremely important both for strengthening the education system and for economic development in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

National civil society conference discusses the sector’s challenges in Albania

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The EU-funded National Resource Centre for Civil Society in Albania gathered more than 100 representatives from Albanian civil society organisations online to discuss the challenges they are facing. The conference brought together organisations, networks and civil society activists, as well as representatives of state institutions, donors and international organisations.

 

The EU Ambassador to Albania, Luigi Soreca, was also part of the conference. In his opening remarks he stressed that civil society involvement in policy-making is essential but currently unsatisfactory in Albania, advising that: “Public authorities should ensure the participation of civil society in reform processes. Important efforts are still needed to have effective consultation processes with civil society before legislation is adopted. Consultations that are not done consistently and coherently may compromise the quality of new laws and future steps in the accession process.”

 

The main issues discussed at the conference related to the development of the sector and its role in policy-making, in the strengthening of democracy and in the country’s socio-economic development.

 

The National Resource Centre for Civil Society in Albania is an EU-funded platform of information and service provision which contributes to the strengthening of civil society’s capacities to be more effective, transparent, accountable and independent actors. It supports the creation of an enabling environment for civil society, participatory democracy and Albania’s process of integration into the European Union. The initiative is financed by the European Union and is implemented by Partners Albania in partnership with the Albanian Center for Population and Development (ACPD) and the European Movement in Albania (EMA).

The EU4Schools and EU4Culture programmes respond to the November 2019 earthquake in Albania

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26 November 2020 A year ago, Albania was hit by a deadly earthquake which caused significant casualties as well as widespread damage to public and private property. Affected sites included educational facilities and cultural heritage monuments.

 

The European Commission has pledged €115 million in grants to support reconstruction through the EU4Schools and the EU4Culture programmes. Works under both programmes are ongoing.

 

Earlier this week, EU Ambassador Luigi Soreca visited two of the schools currently under repair and reconstruction in Durrës and Kruja. He said: “Schools are the real symbol of recovery for society, and offer a new beginning for the children affected by the destruction of their schools. The work sites I visited are the embodiment of the solid ties of solidarity between the citizens of the EU and Albania. Since day one, the European Union has continuously been on the frontline of helping Albania.”

 

The EU4Schools programme is providing €75 million to rebuild and repair 58 educational facilities in the 11 earthquake-affected municipalities through the United Nations Development Programme. Twenty thousand school and kindergarten children, as well as more than 200,000 community members, will benefit from the programme.

 

The Albanian economy is heavily dependent on tourism, which has faced a double disaster this year with the damage of the country’s cultural heritage sites and the unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic. The EU4Culture project, agreed in October, seeks to address this situation by revitalising earthquake-affected cultural heritage sites in Albania with a focus on boosting tourism and local economic development. The EU4Culture provides €40 million for the restoration of cultural heritage sites through the United Nations Office for Project Services.

 

The reconstruction work for both programmes combines the “Build Back Better” and “Build Better Together” approaches for every community — bringing together local governments, communities and public institutions in designing and implementing rapid recovery activities through transparent systems, while at the same time promoting ownership and the sustainability of the investment.

The Regional Cooperation Council and UNDP launch Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative

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Currently, 40% of all those employed in the Western Balkans are women, but more than 23% of them hold insecure jobs. Only 27.5% of business owners in the Western Balkans are women, and just 14.2% of companies’ top managers are female. The share of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) occupations is 14% due to gender stereotypes, pay gaps and gender bias that prevent many girls in the region from choosing an education in STEM fields.

 

The Regional Cooperation Council and UNDP have therefore launched the Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative. The main goal of this initiative is to encourage reforms that will foster women’s participation and leadership in the economy, reducing gender gaps and promoting further economic development of the region. More specifically, the initiative will establish a Regional Network of Women in STEM, prepare an action plan to advance women’s involvement in STEM fields, facilitate regional dialogue leading to women’s economic empowerment initiatives, and increase knowledge and awareness about women’s active role in society, including their contribution to economic growth and sustainable development.

 

The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) is co-funded by the European Union.

Tradition, fashion and art make a business

Written by WeBalkans on . Posted in Stories.

A woman from Rožaje in Montenegro blends tradition, fashion and art to start a new business. Igbala Murić, 49, lives in the small border town of Rožaje in Montenegro. From a young age she enjoyed sewing traditional textiles like bedding, clothes, and napkins. As a high school student she had already decided that she would build a professional life based on these skills. In agreement with her parents, she registered at a professional high school for textile production. Later in life she worked as a tailor in companies in Montenegro and Turkey, but this work did not include traditional crafts. “I missed working on our traditional clothes and other textiles. Our traditional clothing is unique and beautiful, and it is also our cultural heritage,” she says. All along, Igbala wanted to do something about the preservation of this traditional heritage in textiles. Her idea was to start her own business that would specialise in the production of her culture’s traditional clothing. But for this, she needed financial support and to know how to start and manage a business. Years passed, but she was not able to initiate anything sustainable. “Our traditional clothing is unique and beautiful, and our cultural heritage” Finding the right support In 2019 Igbala heard about the ‘Craftsman’ project funded as part of the IPA CBC Programme Serbia – Montenegro 2014 – 2020, financed by the European Union. The project that provided support for women and young people in the Rožaje region in Montenegro and Sjenica region in Seribia. She registered a company and applied for support. She participated in a training programme for business management, received a new sewing machine from the project, and entered the world of entrepreneurship. The project provided support to more than 90 individuals like Igbala by involving them in this training and a mentoring programme. As a result of the support, she has increased production since the beginning of this year and had been planning to employ other women until plans got interrupted by the pandemic. “I was working mainly on handicrafts. The support from the project provided me with an opportunity to expand my business, increase production, and also sell in other parts of Montenegro,” she says.

“The support from the project provided me with an opportunity to expand my business, increase production, and also sell in other parts of Montenegro”

Amela Kovačević Kalender, the project manager, says: ‘The municipality of Rožaje is proud to support local economic development, with a strong focus on job creation and entrepreneurship. We aim to encourage people to pursue their ideas and to show that even small initiatives can have a significant impact on the local economy.’ The implementing partners of the project are the Municipality of Rožaje and the Municipality of Sjenica, in cooperation with the two vocational schools from these cities. The ‘Craftsman’ project was funded as part of the IPA CBC Programme Serbia – Montenegro 2014 – 2020, financed by the European Union. Helping traditional businesses Micro, small and medium enterprises play a crucial role in employing a diverse workforce and income generation for local communities in both Montenegro and Serbia. Under the leadership of local authorities, the project has supported collaboration amongst secondary vocational schools from target municipalities to renew interest in traditional businesses like handcrafts. The project has generated new jobs for vulnerable parts of the population, including youth and women, by providing the help they need in terms of business knowledge, start-up support, training and mentoring. Additionally, the project has provided specialised craft tools to secondary schools in Rožaje and nearby Sjenica in Serbia, to be used by students and other potential entrepreneurs.