Nansen Dialogue Centre Skopje

Last updated April 26, 2019

Nansen Dialogue Centre Skopje is an NGO based in Skopje Macedonia which was founded in 2000. It won the 2011 Max van der Stoel Award from the Netherlands and OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities.^[1] Its mission is to support intercultural and interethnic dialogue processes with the aim of contributing to conflict prevention, reconciliation and peace building through program activities, in particular in education.

Skopje is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic center.

Maximilianus "Max" van der Stoel was a Dutch politician and diplomat of the Labour Party. On 17 May 1991, he was granted the honorary title of Minister of State.

The Netherlands is a country located mainly in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Together with three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian.

Nansen Dialogue Center Skopje is a local non-governmental and non-profit organization, established in 2000 supported by the Nansen Academy from Lillehammer, Norway. NDC Skopje is part of the Nansen Dialogue Network that consists of Nansen Dialogue Centers in the Western Balkans and the Nansen Academy in Norway. Nansen Dialogue Network is a member of the European Peace Building Liaison Office.

Non-governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, or nongovernment organizations, commonly referred to as NGOs, are usually non-profit and sometimes international organizations independent of governments and international governmental organizations that are active in humanitarian, educational, health care, public policy, social, human rights, environmental, and other areas to effect changes according to their objectives. They are thus a subgroup of all organizations founded by citizens, which include clubs and other associations that provide services, benefits, and premises only to members. Sometimes the term is used as a synonym of "civil society organization" to refer to any association founded by citizens, but this is not how the term is normally used in the media or everyday language, as recorded by major dictionaries. The explanation of the term by NGO.org is ambivalent. It first says an NGO is any non-profit, voluntary citizens' group which is organized on a local, national or international level, but then goes on to restrict the meaning in the sense used by most English speakers and the media: Task-oriented and driven by people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen concerns to Governments, advocate and monitor policies and encourage political participation through provision of information.

Lillehammer is a town and municipality in Oppland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. As of 2018, the population of the town of Lillehammer was 28 034. The city centre is a late nineteenth-century concentration of wooden houses, which enjoys a picturesque location overlooking the northern part of lake Mjøsa and the river Lågen, surrounded by mountains. Lillehammer hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics and 2016 Winter Youth Olympics. Before Oslo's withdrawal from consideration, it was included as part of a bid to host events in the 2022 Winter Olympics if Oslo were to win the rights to hold the Games.

Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe whose territory comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula; the remote island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard are also part of the Kingdom of Norway. The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land.

Donor

The main donor of NDC Skopje is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Norway), as well as the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway in Skopje, Macedonia.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Norway) Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the foreign ministry of the Kingdom of Norway. It was established on June 7, 1905, the same day the Parliament of Norway (Stortinget) decided to dissolve the personal union with Sweden.

Background

Upon the establishment of the Nansen Dialogue Center Skopje in the year 2000, the focus of the organization was mainly on students, young politicians, representatives of non-governmental organizations and primary schools students in Macedonia. The goal of the activities was to give the participants skills for non-violent communication, leading dialogue, conflict analysis and to enable them to understand the difference between dialogue and a debate.

In 2001, the activities were extended on a regional level by organizing several seminars and forums with young leaders and politicians from Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Croatia. NDC Skopje program activities have also included several journalists from Macedonia.

After the end of the conflict in Macedonia and signing the Framework Peace Agreement in August 2001, NDC Skopje has focused its activities towards promoting the Framework Peace Agreement and has continued to work with young people from the areas mostly affected by the conflict. In cooperation with OSCE, several dialogue sessions were organized with young people from Tetovo. Also, tribunes with young politicians were intensified, both on local and regional level.

In 2003 and 2004, the focus of the program activities was put on strengthening the capacities of the political parties i.e. the youth branches of the political parties. Four “Schools for young politicians” were created where 85 young politicians took part. Each school lasted 25 days. University professors from Macedonia and abroad, as well as part of the leaders of the political parties in Macedonia, took the role of lecturers in those schools.

In 2005, after adopting the Law on territorial division of the local self-governments, NDC Skopje has started the implementation of the program “Dialogue and reconciliation” in 2005 in Municipality of Jegunovce, which is located in the Northwestern part of Macedonia. NDC Skopje has chosen the Municipality of Jegunovce, because it was mostly affected by the armed conflict in 2001. As a direct consequence of the conflict, ethnically based segregation of the primary schools started in this Municipality in 2002.

Jegunovce is a municipality in the northwest of the Republic of North Macedonia. Jegunovce is also the name of the village where the municipal seat is found. Jegunovce Municipality is part of the Polog Statistical Region.

Through dialogue seminars and trainings on communication, cooperation, tolerance, teamwork and peaceful conflict resolution, conditions have been created for opening of six cabinets where students in mixed ethnic composition attended bilingual courses in IT, English, Macedonian and Albanian language. Each year, the courses have been attended by approximately 200 students. The program was implemented through the year 2008 when the conditions were created for opening the first integrated primary school “Fridtjof Nansen” in the village Preljubishte, Municipality of Jegunovce. In 2010, the first integrated secondary school “Mosha Pijade” was officially open in village Preljubishte. Based on the previous success, the project was expanded in the municipality of Strumica, where the first integrated classrooms were established in November 2010. Starting from the school year September 2011/2012 NDC Skopje has signed partnership agreements and will implement the Integrated Education programs in two more primary schools/municipalities: “Rajko Zinzifov” Cair, and “Goce Delcev” Municipality of Vasilevo.

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References

↑ Nansen Dialogue Centre Skopje to receive 2011 Max van der Stoel Award

External links

NDC skopje website

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[1] Nansen Dialogue Centre Skopje to receive 2011 Max van der Stoel Award