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The new project, “Exercising the Freedom of Expression and Openness of State Institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Serbia” is intended to increase public awareness on issues of access to justice and contribute towards more transparent and more responsive institutions in these three countries.

The regional project will result in country-based and one cross-regional analysis, the first of its kind, offering a regional perspective on the accessibility of public institutions in the Western Balkan region.

The project will be implemented from April to December 2017 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Serbia.

 

Are you concerned about the negative and dangerous online messages that are damaging to individuals and communities around you? Worried about conversations influenced by fake news, disinformation, trolling, and various forms of propaganda used for radicalization and recruitment purposes?

 Would you like to contribute to making social media more positive, constructive and safe for everyone? Whether you have ideas on the backburner or you are already working on a campaign, initiative or a digital project through your organization, as part of your job, or in your free time, to tackle these problems in an online space, we would like to hear from you!

Workshops will be held in five Western Balkan countries as follows: 

Skopje, Macedonia May 18-19

Pristina, Kosovo May 22-23

Tirana, Albania May 25-26

Belgrade, Serbia May 29-30

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina June 1-2

 *Regional Hackathon in Albania: July 5 – 7 

Participants in the program will have access to one-on-one mentorship following the Hackathon, which will be an opportunity to further develop promising campaign concepts, as well as seed funding for the most promising initiatives.

During this workshop, participants will:

– Develop an online communication strategy to respond to dangerous content;

– Learn audience profiling and targeting techniques;

– Practice message development strategies; and

– Receive feedback and coaching from dangerous content response experts.
 

If this sounds like the workshop for you, please complete this short application by April 16, 2017. 

Accepted applicants will be notified via email by April 20, 2017 with additional details.

Please contact [email protected] with questions or to request an application in Albanian, Bosnian-Serbian or Macedonian language. *Applications will be accepted in English or local languages 

Workshops will be held in English with translation to local languages provided, as well as transportation and accommodation for those traveling from outside of the capital city.

Application form could be found here. 

The evaluation of BFJE programme on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, carried by Brankica Petkovic, Researcher and Project Manager at the Peace Institute, Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies in Ljubljana, concluded that the programme had been of high value to the journalists who had been given the opportunity to participate in it up to now.

“For almost all individual fellows interviewed within our review, participation in the BFJE has been a milestone in their professional growth and careers. It has crucially influenced the way they work in and perceive their own profession,” the review said.

“They speak of the emancipatory influence of the programme on them, about expanded horizons and skills, a changed mind-set and spirit, greater openness for cross-border journalism and their own positioning among journalists of the world,” the review added.

The evaluation included semi-structured interviews with 26 relevant stakeholders, including 14 former fellows, but also with members of the Fellowship implementing structure, as well as external observers, such as editors and media experts.

It stressed the considerable evidence of the impact of these stories on society, in terms of increased public awareness, public debates or even policy changes.

“In some cases, stories have even directly affected people’s lives, enabling them, for instance, to initiate legal battles for justice. Some stories led to follow-ups, either by the same journalist after the Fellowship program, or by other journalists in the region but also in international media,” the evaluation said.

The Unidentified’ was screened for viewers in former Yugoslav countries as part of Al Jazeera Balkans’ ‘Regioskop’ slot, which usually reaches over 500,000 viewers. 

The film was put on the channel’s website immediately after the broadcast and has recorded 33,800 views to date. 

‘The Unidentified’ investigates attacks on Kosovo villages in 1999 and names those involved in an attempted cover-up operation to conceal the crimes. 

It takes viewers back to the villages of Ljubenic, Cuska, Pavljan and Zahac, near Pec/Peja in Kosovo, in the spring of 1999, when Serbian forces killed more than 118 Albanian civilians.

 The victims’ bodies were burned or removed, and some of them were subsequently found in a mass grave at a police training centre in Batajnica, near Belgrade, in 2001. 

The trial of the fighters alleged to have been involved in the killings – ten of them accused of being direct perpetrators – is still ongoing in Belgrade, but the police and army generals who gave the orders have never been prosecuted in Serbia. 

The documentary had its international premiere at 2015 Sarajevo Film Festival and has been screened at various other festivals and institutes, in Paris, New York, Washington DC, Zagreb, Belgrade, Tirana, Maribor and Los Angeles where it won the best short documentary award at the South East European Film Festival.

The next screening of the film on Al Jazeera Balkans is scheduled for May.

The project, entitled ‘Investigate for ME and EU’, which is being implemented by the Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG) and BIRN, began in February.

“CIN and BIRN jointly won this grant in the first-ever EC media call to be organized in Montenegro, and this collaboration is of particular importance for us. Through the partnership with BIRN, CIN-CG – established just three years ago – will strengthen its capacities, both in terms of supporting journalistic investigations and in managing an EU project,” said Milka Tadic Mijovic, president of CIN-CG.

“Investigative stories about the process of EU integration will be produced by the members of our team and journalists from other Montenegrin media – those that win in the call for the best investigative proposals, which is already open. They will deal with the biggest challenges in the country’s negotiations with the EU, including corruption, the rule of law, and environmental issues,” Tadic Mijovic explained.

The recently-published report by the ECRI, the human rights monitoring body of the Council of Europe, repeatedly cites articles from Balkan Insight published between 2013-2016.

The articles include pieces dealing with hate speech, elections, the schooling system, incidents that sparked ethnic tensions, attacks on the LGBT community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and problems related to releasing census data due to political disputes.

The ECRI report concluded that politicians in the country were still resistant to ehthic integration.

“While welcoming the quick reaction by the politicians to the attacks against returnees, and measures taken to resolve problems of discrimination faced by the Roma community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the anti-racism commission denounced a persistent lack of political will to build an inclusive society in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, the report said.

“Ethnically segregated education systems are still in place and the political elites of the three main ethnic groups show no willingness to embrace integrated schools. Inter-ethnic tensions remain dangerously high and hate speech is still frequently used in the public discourse,” it added.

The training sessions from January 31 to February 3 in Vrsac had the overall aim to improve BIRB staff’s effectiveness in the preparation and implementation of projects and programmes.

The College of Europe from Bruges designed and implemented the training programme and participants from Romania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia took part.

Project cycle management (PCM) is the process of planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling a project effectively and efficiently throughout its phases, from planning through execution then completion and review, in order to achieve pre-defined objectives or satisfy the project stakeholders by producing the right deliverables at the right time, cost and quality.