AJM awarded for special achievements within the CIVICA Mobilitas program

The Association of Journalists of Macedonia is among the ten award-winning civil society organizations for special achievements within the final event organized by the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation held on November 30, 2018. The event was attended by representatives from 132 organizations that were part of the CIVICA Mobilitas program, which was implemented in the past four years.

During the event, the Ambassador of Switzerland, Her Excellency Sibyl Suter Tejada, spoke in front of the audience, stressing that in the last two or three years, civil society initiatives have provided tangible changes in the country that confirmed the potential for increasing its influence. “Of course, we are aware that these reforms are still far from the expectations of the citizens, but at least there is a good basis for dialogue and openness for cooperation,” she said.

This is the largest program for supporting civic organizations, that is, a program that has enabled the widest coverage in history, and this makes me very happy,” said Aleksandar Krzalovski, the national team leader of CIVICA Mobilitas. He summarized the results of the program, which included over 2,000 training courses for CSOs, over 1,800 surveys on various topics, over 500 debates and discussions, over 600 research stories, etc.

Within the framework of the Program, AJM organized numerous activities for professional development of journalists, greater professionalization of the journalistic profession in the country and increasing the capacities of the Association. At the same time, many publications were promoted, journalistic awards were given, and numerous debates were held.

The Executive Director of the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, Dragan Sekulovski, spoke at the event and he said that AJM through the support of the CIVICA program had numerous events for journalists throughout Macedonia, which were followed by various publications which were relevant to our colleagues. “One of the biggest successes of AJM supported by this program is the court case which we won in front of the European Court of Human Rights, called “Selmani and the others versus Macedonia”. This was an important case for us because it is the only case in the country for violating the Article 10 which is related to freedom of expression,” said Sekulovski.