Report on meeting with the CSO’s in Mitrovica
Organizational
The meeting with CSOs of the Mitrovica region took place on 17 September 2010, starting
from 10:00 in the premises of Hotel Palace in Mitrovica. Participants were from NGO’s from
north and south Mitrovica. The meeting was organized from CBM in partnership with CCSD,
where CBM was responsible to invite the NGO’s from south and CCSD for North. The number
of participants was around 45 from them 30 from south and 15 from north Mitrovica.
Translation was provided from Albanian to Serbian and via versa, one translator was hired. A
company was hired for providing the simultant equipments. The meeting was held on the
premises of Palace hotel which is based in south Mitrovica. Participants were from different
communities.
Discussion on the meeting
The meeting was moderated by Shqipe Svelca, TACSO Project Officer. Welcoming for all the
participants was made by Ardita Metaj TACSO RA, Valdete Idrizi CBM and Momcilo Arlov CCSD.
Ardita Metaj – Dika presented the TACSO project were she made clear to all the participants
for what TACSO is there.
The meeting started with a detailed presentation of Ardita Metaj of TACSO program, from the
Aim to the structure of the program. TACSO project is regional mechanism which aims to
strengthen the role of civil society in the region. The Government does not have the
mechanism to monitor the projects that it is financing, since a large number of registered
NGO’s are not functioning or are not profiled. EU has founds for implementing the projects
and for having access to those founds the organizations have to be more active. The
Governments in the region have to understand that without having a substantial partnership
with Civil Society they can’t go further. Also the project aims to offer a possibility of
cooperation between European commission and civil society.
CCSD Mr. Momcilo Arlov and from CBM Ms. Valdete Idrizi on the TACSO and CSO’s. talked
about the role of NGOs in Mitrovica and how important is that NGO’s are accountable towards
beneficiaries and donors as well.
Valdete Idrizi from CBM – The meeting should be seen as a good possibility for expressing the
needs of civil society for the future to realize their goals and also a good possibility to get
Note: This report was prepared by NGO “Community Building Mitrovica” and Center for Civil Society Development
connected with other partners through TACSO website, where are included a lot of
information for different NGO’s which act in the region.
She was mentioning that there is a big possibility for founds but NGO’s very rare have their
short, middle and long term strategy and this shows that most of the NGO’s halt on managing
the organization.
Momcilo Arlov from CCSD NGO in North Mitrovica, talked about the challenges that NGO’s
face applying for EU grants, mentioning his NGO which is active for a long time and has
difficulties to apply for grants. In this mater he asked all the NGO’s to use the possibilities that
TACSO offers through trainings and advice that are organized for this purpose.
He also mentioned that there are founds but the NGO’s should be very active, to work hard
and use TACSO as help for NGO’s.
After the presentation of all panelists there were a discussion and a lot of questions on TACSO.
As a need for NGO’s from north was the registration in PADOR, organizations that have PADOR
they have difficulties to access and update the information about the organization.
The procedure applying for the EU grants which was considered very complicated and a lot of
information needed.
Few organizations from the North come and ask the organizations from South to support them
in tax Administration office that is located in the South. Sometimes the language is the
problem, both in verbal and in documents.
One part of the discussion was focused on the difficulties on the applications for IPA and
EIDHR Calls. Two organizations in the meeting EKO Trepca and Caritas Mitrovica/CBM shared
their experience that they had with grant from European Commission; they highly estimated
the trainings organized by TACSO Office Prishtina. Some of the representatives from North and
South have already participated in the trainings.
There were many questions that were not related to TACSO such as helping writing project
proposals, grant programs, help in writing reports. In this issues the representatives of TACSO
answered by giving directions and information about other grant giving 0rganizations and
related institutions.
LAG as a Body within TACSO was well perceived as a groups of volunteers from different
background that contributed to identify needs of NGOs from all the fields.
Note: This report was prepared by NGO “Community Building Mitrovica” and Center for Civil Society Development