Македонски центар за меѓународна соработка - МЦМС

The overall goal of the project was to strengthen the civic activism and the citizens’ awareness about the need for building sustainable and dynamic civil society sector capable of responding to the challenges and priorities of the domestic public.

The project purpose was to stimulate and organize broad public action, in terms of supporting the affirmation and official use of the constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia on international level.

The added value of the project was the possibility some of the activities to be used for raising domestic funds (from citizens, business, public sector). The gained experience and the established contacts were supposed to serve as a good basis for planning the future fund raising activities of MCIC.

The target group included the general public in Macedonia i.e. citizens, media, public institutions and business sector.

Several activities were realized during the campaign, enabling the citizens to express their own attitude about the (non)use of the official name of the state on international level. The activities were organized and implemented in cooperation with numerous civil society organizations, public institutions, media and companies, which provided massive support to the action.

The first part of the campaign was directed towards the decree of the Council of Europe as of March 2, 2004, stipulating use of inappropriate names for the state, the citizens as well as the national identity, culture and language of ethnic Macedonians. During the campaign, 200.000 postcards were printed and distributed with the message Say Macedonia, with an appeal to the citizens to send the postcards to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg or the local office of the CoE in Skopje. The postcards were distributed in cooperation with the leading daily newspapers in the country, which also provided extensive media coverage and visibility of the action.

MCIC in cooperation with a wide circle of organizations launched public sending of the postcards from Skopje and the other towns in the country. The organizers made efforts to invite public figures to give example to the citizens. The citizens also had an opportunity to sign a letter of protest prepared by the Euro Balkan Institute, addressed to the Council of Europe.

In cooperation with the Macedonian radio and television (MRTV) as well as other media, public institutions, MCIC and the participating organizations organized concert in the City Park in Skopje, under the motto Say Macedonia. T-shirts and badges with the same message were also prepared and the citizens were able to buy them, providing in this way funding for continuing the action. The concert was used for sending postcards and getting signatures in support of the protest letter as well as for making an appeal to the Council of Europe and the other international organizations for using the constitutional name of Macedonia.

At the end of the year, a similar event was organized upon initiative of SOZM and support from FOSIM, when the United States of America recognized the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name.

Implementation period: March – December 2004.