The Civic Resource Centre (CRC) continues to strengthen civil society organisations (CSOs). On 23-24 November 2023, the second of the four planned workshops for project planning and writing project proposals was held in Shtip.
This workshop was held as a follow-up activity of the online Training on project planning and writing a project application, which was a requirement for participation in the workshop.
„After passing all 6 preparatory online modules of the Project Planning Training, the workshop was an excellent opportunity to gain practical skills for preparing project proposals“, said Viktor Atanasov from the KREATIV Youth Association from Kavadarci. “At the workshop, through the practical work in groups, we had the opportunity to cover all phases of a project cycle” he said.
Participants were able to increase knowledge and skills in project idea development and project planning, problem analysis, goal analysis and project strategy selection, logical framework approach, logic of intervention, indicators for checking project success, assumptions and risks. They also acquired knowledge about the allocation of resources for the planned activities and the preparation of a budget for the project. Through the practical exercises, the participants gained knowledge about filling out the application form and connecting it to the logical framework.
After the workshop, mentoring activities will be conducted with the trained organisations, which will ensure that the expected results are finalized.
Maja Chadieva Jensen, Foundation Focus Veles, described the workshop as “very useful, well organised and practical“. “The lecturers had a warm attitude, patience, maximum dedication and were truly cordial hosts. In addition to the sublimated useful theory, we also heard live examples from their abundant past practice as a sublimation of positive experiences that will help us to successfully apply what we have learned in our future project applications. We also get to know many organisations from other cities in the country that we have not had the opportunity to meet until now, and we have established cooperation that we believe will be fruitful in the future. An excellent combination of knowledge, skill and strong motivation for our future success! ” she said.
The workshop experience was also positive for Igor Gavrilov from the Association of Beekeepers BEE from Probishtip. “Excellently organised and conducted training in Shtip, at which trainers at a high professional level presented and transferred their knowledge and skills to those present” he said.
The CSOs’ interest in strengthening their capacities in this area was very great. At the public call for participation in the workshop, 100 CSOs’ representatives applied, of which 16 participants were selected for this workshop. By the end of February 2024, the GRC plans to conduct two more workshops on this topic with the CSOs’ representatives that expressed interest.
The workshop was organised within the project “EU support of the Civil Society Resource Centre – Phase 2”, financed by the European Union, and implemented by the National Civil Society Development Foundation – Civic Resource Centre, the Macedonian Centre for International Cooperation, Media Plus, Shtip and Association for Democratic Initiatives – ADI, Gostivar.
