Our member organizationsare provided necessary social and health services each day.
We supported projects focused on improving social services on the local level.
More than 500 decision makers and stakeholders from civil and public sector attended our national events in 2014.
IRIS Network is the only regional network in SEE which brings together national networks of civil society organizations – providers of social services from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Since 2012, more than 200 CSO members from the region provide a variety of social services for children, PwD, youth and women at risk and victims of violence, Roma, migrants, returnees upon the readmission agreement, migrants, asylum seekers, and other members of vulnerable groups.
The goal of the IRIS Network is to strengthen the role of CSOs – providers of social services and to ensure their recognition as equal partners by the public sector. The Network focuses on achieving greater commitment and capacity of CSOs to voice the needs of the beneficiaries and influence public sector reform processes through analysis, monitoring and advocacy.
IRIS network is the only regional network that brings together CSOs social service providers in South East Europe.
IRIS has six national secretariats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania.
Iris Network connects and builds capacities for more than 200 organizations from SEE region providing social services.
We encourage a consensus among decision-makers, experts, and civil society on the needs for effective coordination and use of available local resources and future EU funds earmarked for social inclusion of vulnerable and marginalized groups.
Our online platform is a platform for the exchange of knowledge between different organizations and people involved in the provision of social services throughout the region.
“Partnership with Iris network meant a lot to our team because we had great, useful and professional training that has helped our organization on personal and professional level. With the knowledge we gained, we improved and built our organizational capacities.Creation of the professional date base for social services delivery, we believe that it will contribute to better coordination between different stakeholders, and also to better awareness of national and local government and citizens when it comes to social services provision”
“We believe IRIS network is of great importance to our organization, and that we can, by working together, develop and improve democratic social services programs and social entrepreneurship in the society. Our opinion is that IRIS can do a lot for improvement of quality of life of beneficiaries of social services, in our case for elderly and ill patients. Based on our previous cooperation and numerous educative activities we are together creating a better environment in, even better provision of quality services”
“IRIS network grant has helped our project Diversity Week: “Creating Space For All” to raise awareness among general population in Kosovo regarding LGBT rights and also to empower the LGBT community through: Film screening, Exhibition, Panel discussions, LGBT Monologues, Workshops, Queer Party and Healing Activities. The fund has helped QESh to organize more activities that were foreseen and also make Diversity Week a larger event that attracted a larger public mass. Through this project QESh was able to increase the visibility of the LGBT community to the general public in a special focus on youth; to provide support and opportunities for the LGBT community to express themselves and to be recognizedas a diverse human being; and also strengthening the network of the LGBT organizations on the region, by participating in Diversity Week”.
“The importance of the IRIS BiH National Network:
• Stronger CSOs impact in terms of arranging faster achievement of vision and mission and program goals of individual associations and advocacy for sustainability of service;
• Stronger association’s influence on decision making process and creation of public policies and the participation of CSOs in the creation of the public policies of the interest to BiH citizens;
• Improvement of the capacity of social services providers and the exchange of knowledge, experience and good practice;
• Rational use of existing resources of CSOs for the achievement of common goals;
• Joint advocacy and lobbying, common occurrence, developing common project initiatives, joint fundraising activities
• To follow up quality system control of the members of the network in project implementation;
• The BiH National Network is the first of this kind in BiH.”