1st candidate of professional training programme awarded traineeship!

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In the framework of the EU-funded project “Improving the provision of Social Service Delivery in South Eastern Europe through the empowerment of national and regional CSOs”, implemented by the consortium of SOLIDAR, LIR CD BiH, OGI Croatia, EDC Serbia, SOS TELEPHONE Montenegro, CLARD Kosovo, ARSIS Albania, ASYD FYROM – led by ASB Germany, SOLIDAR is organizing a Professional Staff Training Programme open to staff members of CSOs providing social services in the Western Balkans, that are part of the IRIS Network. Upon publication of the call for professional training, SOLIDAR received significant number of quality applications that has been thoroughly evaluated and decided on single participant of the programme.

Jasmina Hasanagic, graduated Journalist, currently pursuing PhD in Gender Issues and Human Rights in University of Sarajevo is our first distinguished candidate who will have opportunity to participate in 4 week traineeship in Spain. Ms. Hasanagic is pursuing career in civil sector, in past eight years she has been active as direct service providing. Currently, she is project manager in NGO Women from Una based in Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As of 26th January 2016 selected candidate will spend 4 weeks in the premises of Movimiento por la Paz (MPDL) in Madrid (Spain).  Traineeship will be learning experience on the provision of social services and civic movement in Spain, as well as insight into how the provision of services and the policy advocacy is shaped.

MPDL is an independent, secular and progressive NGO working since 1983 to promote human rights, democracy and solidarity. In particular, the NGO works in the following sectors:  migration, socio-economic integration, awareness-raising activities for students, teachers and family groups to promote a Culture of Peace, volunteering and training to promote various activities that symbolize and encourage citizen participation.

As part of the capacity building efforts SOLIDAR and IRIS Network will organize 4 additional individual traineeships for the Network members at EU-based social service providers in 2016.

Small grants for 13 local advocacy initiatives in SEE

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Out of 34 received project proposals, IRIS Network awarded 13 grants under 2nd CFP Support to projects of civil society organizations (CSO) – social service providers in SEE in scope of the projects “Improving the provision of Social Service Delivery in South Eastern Europe through the empowerment of national and regional CSO networks”. IRIS network Project Evaluation Committee decided to support total of 13 projects in 6 project countries: three in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania, two in Serbia, Kosovo, and FYROM and one in  Montenegro. 

Implementation of all supported project starts on 4th January 2016 with the duration of four to six months. Each project deals with important social issues and strives to strengthen civil society organizations role in  the creation of social policies and social protection programmes. Overall objective of the SGF is to achieve a more dynamic civil society actively participating in public debate on democracy, human rights, social inclusion and the rule of law and with capacity to influence policy and decision making processes.

 

The projects assessment criteria included: organisational performance; comprehensiveness of information including relevance of the proposal to objectives of the fund, objectives of the project and addressing identified need; capacity of identified activities to achieve defined objectives; the relationship between the proposed actions and the financial plan; the intended impact of the project and future sustainability.

Main output of this Call is implementation of 13 small advocacy initiatives.

Iris network would like to congratulate all of its member organizations who received grants, but also to thank all applicants who sent us their project proposals. Final list of all organizations who received grants can be found in the following table.

Improving social services delivered by CSOs in Albania

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In order to transfer strategic guidelines adopted at the strategic planning of the regional IRIS network to the national level, partner organisation ARSIS will organise an Annual Congress of the national IRIS network in Albania. The event will take place in Tirana on 15 and 16 December 2015.  Congress will be opportunity to set strategic goals of the national network, but also as an advocacy tool to present policy standpoints of the national network to the decision-makers in their respective country.

Detailed agenda can be found here.