Promoting human rights in a traditional environment

Capacity building for strengthening local action

The Local Action Group was founded in 2016 by Kimete Mazari. Back then, Kimete was working as a teacher and for the International Red Cross. She explains that Dibër is one of the poorest regions in Albania, where apart from poverty there are also issues with the traditional mentality that has an impact on human rights. She saw that there was very little being done to address this issue. “So, we decided that we needed to do something to fill the gap, through advocacy and lobbying for human rights,” she says.

Being a local organisation in a remote location, Kimete and her friends had very little experience of what was needed to run an NGO, and few opportunities to gain the necessary skills. Luckily for them, a chance was provided by the EU-funded Technical Assistance to Civil Society Organisations (TACSO) project whose mission is to improve capacity and strengthen the role of civil society organisations in the Western Balkans.

With the knowledge gained through TACSO, the LAG has been able to implement and contribute to the community through projects focused on human rights and other topics. Their first project, which was focused on prevention of family violence, and was also funded by the EU, is one of the most important ones for Kimete. She explains that because Dibër is a very traditional region, women were highly reluctant to speak out about cases of family violence and abuse from the men in their families.

“It is very difficult for women in rural areas to speak about or seek help on the topic of violence. The fact that we were a local organisation was highly beneficial in this regard as we had easier access to households and visited house by house, and talked to many vulnerable women and supported them in many ways,” she says.

For Kimete, the organisation’s greatest success may be the involvement of young people in their activities. The organisation currently has over 300 active volunteers who contribute on a regular basis. “Dibër doesn’t have any youth organisations or representation of youth at local level. By including them in our organisation’s activities we provided them an opportunity to help others but also an opportunity for their voice to be heard,” says Kimete.

However, Kimete emphasised that without the support of TACSO perhaps none of these projects would come to life. TACSO trained her team in many ways, including on project proposal writing, financial management of projects, the best ways to use volunteers, digital outreach communication techniques and many other useful skills. “The EU TACSO project has been with us since day one, and they have been essential to our success,” she says.