Македонски центар за меѓународна соработка - МЦМС

The year of 2007, was designated by the European Commission as “European Year of Equal Opportunities for All”. According to the Commission, “the general goal of the European Year is to strengthen the awareness of the values of fair, cohesive society, in which there are equal opportunities for everyone”. In a state such as Macedonia, where the legal protection of many groups is not yet provided, the example of the European Year conveys an important message that should be shared all over the country. Macedonia has not developed a comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation, but also the conduct of the citizens is to a great extent discriminatory.

The Macedonian Centre for International Cooperation (MCIC), Polio Plus – Support Group for Disabled People and the Centre for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution in a concerted effort have tried to focus the public attention on the discrimination in the country and start the necessary changes for the following period.

Overall goal of the project was to create an efficient and functional framework for equal opportunities for all people in Macedonia. Project purpose was to contribute for increased public awareness for tolerance, accepting the differences and the concept for equal opportunities.

Target group was the general public in the Republic of Macedonia.

Direct beneficiaries were the people discriminated on one or more grounds. Target area: Republic of Macedonia. Most of the activities were realized on national level, but certain aspects were decentralized on local level.

Results

enhanced awareness of the population.

promoted concept on equal opportunities in the general public and the special target groups (civil society organizations, schools, faculties, media).

informed citizens and specific target groups to recognize and fight against the discrimination.

Activities

The activities on awareness building started with a central media campaign. This entailed advertisements in the electronic and printed media, internet and public relations.

The electronic media, mainly television and radio, were used in the campaign. A video was made for the TV stations, with the logo of the campaign and the main message, designed as a puzzle of different faces and types of discrimination. They were broadcast on the national TV stations (MTV, A1, Sitel, Kanal 5 and Alsat). The radio was covered through radio formats (stories on facing different types of discrimination). They were aired on the national radio stations (Kanal 77, City Radio and Radio Vati).

For the printed media, special advertisements/ banners and media prints were developed. The advertisements were closely related with the slogan of the campaign, while the design was adjusted to the main motif (the above mentioned puzzle) based on the printed leaflets. The advertisements/ banners were distributed in the national daily newspapers (Dnevnik, Vreme and Koha), as well as the magazines of the civil society organizations (Civic World and Vulkan).

The internet promotion included constant updating of the existing web site www.equal.org.mk with materials and events from the campaign. Regarding the public relations, besides the press conference, representatives of the NGO coalition spoke on several media outlets (e.g. MCIC was a guest in the morning programme of MTV).

The designs prepared for this project will be used for preparation of promotional and informative materials that would be further used within the decentralized events.