“Strengthening the capacities of associations is crucial for the development of civil society. Accordingly, the trainings organized by the Civil Society Resource Center are an excellent opportunity that organisations should use to acquire and upgrade knowledge in various areas “- said Toni Stankovski from the association “Ljubeznost”, who participated in the last three trainings organized by the Civil Society Resource Center.
For him, the new knowledge related to the organisational development of the association is very useful because they are in the process of strategic planning.
“We are in constant contact with volunteers, associates, associates from other associations, initiatives, schools, companies, institutions and others,” Stankovski said, adding that they also welcome knowledge about recruiting and internal development of human resources.
Procedures for staff recruitment, selection and retention of employees in the organisation, development of systematization with job descriptions and responsibilities, evaluation and development of employees, preparation of rulebook for human resource management were some of the topics for which, 15 representatives of associations gained more detailed knowledge at the training on Human Resource Management held online on 17, 19 and 21 May 2021.
In addition to the theoretical part, the participants had the opportunity to understand and master the process of human resource management through practical work.
The human resource management training was extremely useful for most of the participants. The shared documents will be used to improve the documentation and advance the human resource management processes in their organisation.
“During the training, we saw the weaknesses of the organisation in human resource management. We lack a more appropriate distribution of work responsibilities (division of positions), rewarding employees for well-completed responsibilities, an appropriate plan for developing employees’ knowledge and defining salaries, “said one of the participants in the training.
The Civil Society Resource Center for the first time organized the training “Involvement of constituency in the work of civil society organisations.” For the participants, the distinction between constituents and stakeholders of CSOs was especially useful.
“The acquired knowledge for the analysis of the constituents, their influence and power as well as the communication and the way of building mutual relations are of great importance in the development of the organisations,” they believe.
In addition, most of the participants emphasized that the methods and tools for involving the constituents in the work of their organisation are very useful for them. Added value of the training were the addressing of two guest speakers, who shared success stories on the topic, one from an association from Split and the other from the Scout Association of Macedonia. The training was held online on 5, 7 and 10 May 2021, and was attended by 21 CSOs’ representatives.
Seventeen CSOs’ representatives had the opportunity to get acquainted with the concept of theory of change, which was the topic of the training organized online on 23, 26 and 28 April 2021. This topic is still insufficiently known to organisations and rarely applied in their strategic operations. However, given that organisations implement development projects and work to achieve social change, it is essential to have a good knowledge of this concept.
Through practical exercises, participants were introduced to the key elements of theory of change such as: analysis of the current situation and identifying the desired change that the organisation will work on; stakeholder analysis; determining an action plan; indicators for monitoring and evaluation of effects, etc.
According to the participants, such trainings should be organized more often, but also on several levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced level.
The conducted trainings are part of the Capacity Building Program of the Civil Society Resource Center, a project funded by the European Union and implemented by the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation, in partnership with Media Plus, Stip and the Association for Democratic Initiatives, Gostivar.
