4th Call for Proposals

Lead Applicant – Artlink

Project Name – Balchestra

The project promotes our region as a cultural and touristic destination, through recognizable regional cultural-tourismplatform. The project focus on composition of a network of artists to perform and promote in 6 cities in our region, bycreating a unique regional festival platform – “Balchestra”.

Lead Applicant – Umjetnost džeza – Jazz Art

Project Name – In Search of Our Musical Roots

This project contributes to regional cooperation, and strengthens regional cohesion in the WB6 region through creation of new jazz and contemporary music written by young composers from the WB Region and performed by an ensemble of young musicians-students. “In Search of Our Musical Roots” is in a way a continuation of Balkan Youth Jazz Orchestra (BYJO), a project which was a grantee of WBF 3th Call. The continuation and expansion of that project is important as a support for the development of joint musical creativity of young Balkan musicians, giving them a chance to continue to work together, through special guidelines and research topics connecting their musical roots and new musical expressions. This will also lead to closer inter-regional cooperation between composers and players. More performances through the region will popularize jazz and contemporary music among youth audiences, bridging the cultures and bringing them closer.

Lead Applicant – Association Kulturanova

Project Name – Media and art in service of reconciliation

“Media and Art in service of Reconciliation” project contributes to CSO cooperation in the WB6 region by working on reconciliation by producing new narratives among young people. During the ten day training in Bosnia and Herzegovina, participants from Serbia and Kosovo* worked on making media analyses of narratives published on media portals in WB Region. This specific project combats prejudices and existing stereotypes that develop from not knowing the full facts or the true extent and complexity of Western Balkan’s sensitivities and history. In addition to providing these young people with a critical insight into media content, specifically regarding the Srebrenica Massacre, the project also demonstrates the growing importance of media literacy

Lead Applicant – Don Branko Sbutega Foundation

Project Name – Contemporary Fortresses of Culture: Boka, Trebinje, Novi Sad

Project “Contemporary Fortresses of Culture: Boka, Trebinje, Novi Sad” increases awareness of the richness of cultural heritage in our Contracting Parties. By realizing activities that encourage dialogue, and promote protection, valorization, sustainable usage, and management of participative and integrated approaches of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, the project aims to explore and analyze opportunities and challenges of the (to a large extent) forgotten, neglected and dissonant Austro-Hungarian heritage in Boka, Trebinje and Novi Sad, while at the same time highlighting its potentials in terms of sustainable development and development of regional cooperation and cohesion. Partners Društvo građana Podbare “Almašani” Udruzenje gradjana “Mostovi” Trebinje Target Cultural heritage professionals, creative and cultural experts and workers and NGO sector representatives

Lead Applicant – Youth Initiative for Human Rights Montenegro

Project Name – Intercultural dialogue for joint past narrative

The project contributes to the reconciliation process in Western Balkans by empowering the youth to get engaged in process of facing the past, fighting impunity for war crimes and apply critical thinking in narratives of the 90s through intercultural dialogue.

Lead Applicant – Kosovo Institute of Media and Communication

Project Name – Support to women’s efforts in building regional democracy

The initiation of the project “Support to women’s efforts in building regional democracy” is a must in order to improve the capacities and enhance support to women population in Western Balkan region. Moreover, the role of media is crucial in supporting gender equality and women’s empowerment since it is widely perceived that financial resources linked to political interests restrict some editorial decisions and that sometimes these interests may not align with the gender equality movement or with support for women candidates. By uniting leaders and policy makers from all around the region, such project provided important insights and a list of recommendations already addressed to relevant institutions.

Lead Applicant – Balkan Women Association

Project Name – I love Balkan

The initiation of this joint initiative contributes to improving the livelihood of families by increasing women’s access to economic opportunities, which in turn will benefit their own families and the families of their employees. This will include women entrepreneurs affected by the conflict as well as women entrepreneurs with disabilities. The project represents a womenspecific initiative to address gender inequalities in the small enterprise sector. It combines gender equality promotion with enterprise development. Specifically, it envisages direct technical support to local actors thereby enabling them to: a) Improve the business environment for women entrepreneurship and b) Improve access to markets for women entrepreneurs.

Lead Applicant – Ensemble of folk dances and songs “VESELIN MASLESA”

Project Name – Regional evenings of cultural heritage

The overall objective of the project ”Regional evenings of cultural heritage” is to promote cultural cooperation and exchange among folklore ensembles in Western Balkans. Folklore ensembles are artistic non-profit societies, guardians of tradition and national cultural, who could enhance good neighbourly relations and reconciliation as well as to promote culture heritage.

Lead Applicant – Udruženje Otvorene zabavne škole

Project Name – Female leadership Camp

The project mobilizes young women with sports background to engage in ‘Leadership for women’ learning process, to build their capacity (action-learning) to independently organize sport-for-change activities in their local communities and to enhance mobility of young women across the Region.

Lead Applicant – Zenica City Museum

Project Name – Messages from the past

Through a series of workshops with children, the “Messages of the Past” project explored the many similarities that we share in our common region. During the workshops, the children learned many important information, but they were also taught about gender equality and the European future of our Contracting Parties. The implemented project included also many grassroot organisations from the Western Balkans Region, eager to participate more in regional cooperation project on social, cultural, scientific and economic topics, including crosscutting issues such as gender equality, disability inclusiveness, good neighbourly relations and reconciliation.

Lead Applicant – Center for Prehistoric Research

Project Name – Common Cultural Heritage: interregional research and educational practices

“Common Cultural Heritage: Interregional research and educational practices” brings together experts and students from three different CP. All of them are well known in their work and have been collaborating on several occasions. Working as a team in this project, participants will highlight the common prehistoric cultural heritage in the aforementioned CPs and through various actions will promote these principles among local communities, national representatives, young people and prominent specialists in humanities. The project has several target groups that are directly or indirectly involved in the cultural heritage research, protection, and promotion. Above all the project will highlight women experts dealing with prehistory. Also a major group will be students from Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia which are the future of cultural heritage studies, that will be trained to understand its interregional features and to perceive its cohesion. Besides them, also the local communities, minorities, and official representatives will be incorporated in the project as they are in constant interaction with the cultural heritage landscape.

Lead Applicant – Stena Stenae

Project Name – Protection of natural and cultural heritage trough sustainable tourism in geoparks

Sustainable tourism is now an emerging focus for the West Balkan Region that is looking to diversify their economy and boost its respective tourism industries. This region possesses a great richness and diversity of both natural and cultural heritage which is not valorised, promoted and affirmed on high level to the potential visitors. By conserving and presenting its natural and cultural attractions in an exciting and easily-accessible manner, the WB countries can look to capture new visitors and market segments. As proposed by UNWTO, sustainable tourism ensures a high level of satisfaction and meaningful experience to the tourists, while raising awareness on sustainability and environmental issues. Following the overall objective of this call, project aims to strengthen the collaboration and promote the unique identity of WB region through a broad range of activities related to sustainable form of tourism. Specific activities will be related to four pilot areas in four WB countries (North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania) which are protected areas.

Lead Applicant – Tulla Culture Center

Project Name – Art for Reconciliation

Art for Reconciliation is the project idea introduced by TULLA Cultural Centre (from Albania) and Urban Development Centre (from Serbia) and PriFilmFest (from Kosovo) that introduced new views on cooperation and reconciliation through arts. Joint initiative titled Art for Reconciliation is initially designed in a period when there are clear consequences of a global crisis that has changed the norms and standards of our realities. The art plays an essential role in the management of the stress caused by the COVID-19, while art in general was left behind since the pandemic redefined vision and change the way of doing art. Art for Reconciliation will introduce new way of reconciliation through engagement of young artists in contemporary arts and digital. Storytelling will disclose hidden histories and alternative narratives. The concept of this joint initiative it is meant to be unsettling: It challenges most commonly understood notions of belonging.

Lead Applicant – Albanian Foundation for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation of Disputes

Project Name – Strengthening intercultural dialogue as a tool for youth-to-youth connection and good neighborly relations in the region

The project includes a set of activities with the overall objective of contributing to the meaningful participation of youth from Albania, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in promoting intercultural dialogue as means of building good neighborly relations, reconciliation and peace through a collaborative approach and joint activities.

Lead Applicant – Tirana Ekspres

Project Name – QAR – ( Qendra Artizanale Rinore )

This project united talented peoples with disabilities and empowered them through training on artisanal work and by providing a direct link to the market. Thanks to the project, a unique group of wonderful and extremely talented people learned skills that help them become self-reliant economically and even direct contributors to their families. On top of that, the regional dimension of the project made possible to create a network, that will be active in promoting over the long-term people with disabilities in the region.

Lead Applicant – UG AKADEMSKA SCENA

Project Name – Balkan Shorts Film Network

The project promotes intercultural dialogue on a local level in Struga (North Macedonia), Ulcinj (Montenegro) and Bajina Basta (Serbia), since smaller communities tend to be more closed and intolerant towards sensitive topics are perceived as unpleasant or unwanted. By providing knowledge and support to young filmmakers to develop, produce and disseminate their collaborative works, the project steers public debate on a local level and raises awareness of citizens, creating a fresh impetus for making a positive switch in public’s attitudes towards gender equality, climate change, reconciliation, human rights (including rights of ethnic, religious minorities, and other marginalized groups).

Lead Applicant – Faculty of Political Sciences University of Belgrade

Project Name – Mainstreaming Humanity in Western Balkans: From Education to Reconciliation

The central activity of this project is the organization of a six-day joint forum gathering participants from different Contracting Parties. Students, university professors and practitioners will convene in order to discuss topics related to humanity perceived from different disciplines – transitional justice, regional reconciliation, migration, human rights, conflict analysis and the role of international organisations. The project fosters intra-regional mobility and youth networking, as well as a more proactive approach of young generations towards topics of concern in their domestic contexts. This forum provides students with new knowledge and skills, professors will improve their teaching and research capacities, and practitioners will gain the opportunity to show how to put theoretical frameworks into practical use.

Lead Applicant – Center for Protection and Research of Birds

Project Name – Birds Without Borders (BWB)- Phase II

Birds Without Borders-BWB expresses not-tied-country borders nature of the bird species migration and need for joint interventions in order to contribute to the preservation and valorization of birdlife diversity in the Adriatic Flyway migration route. The project strengthens the capacities of NGO partners related to the protection and monitoring of bird species through research camps. Additionally, this project improves the knowledge and fill in the remaining gaps concerning the avian biodiversity, and conservation needs along the Adriatic Flyway by contributing to the scientific evidence of migrating birds using the Adriatic Flyway.

Lead Applicant – GERMIN

Project Name – Enhancing Regional Cooperation of Young Researchers on Migration & Development

The Western Balkans have a particular relevance in the study of migration in its various forms, including labour migration, high-skilled migration, forced migration, diaspora formation and return migration—all of which are present in this region. And yet this region as a whole remains under-investigated by migration scholars and researchers. This special project represents an effort to reduce this gap in policy-relevant research. Given that the whole region is facing the same phenomenon, the best way to react to it is through regional initiatives, which aim to create opportunities and space for joint action. The idea of a fellowship that aims to meet the demand for pragmatic and thoughtful responses to the challenges and opportunities that large-scale migration in Western Balkan countries presents to communities and institutions in a globalized world.

Lead Applicant – IPSIA BiH

Project Name – The green valley

The project aims to enhance cooperation in the field of environment and climate change and to collect and share experiences and best practices on environmental activism in the Western Balkan region.

Lead Applicant – ANIM – History Teacher Association of Macedonia

Project Name – Transitional justice – trough joint educational approach

The project aims to enhance regional cooperation among history educators in the region of the Western Balkans to advance sustainable peace and mutual understanding through the development and promotion of a common approach to teaching the events of the recent past and the transitional justice process and understandable for students through formal education.

Lead Applicant – Athletic Club Ohrid trcaT

Project Name – Ohrid TrcaT Athletic Camp 2022

Democracy is something children learn as they develop from infancy through adolescence. A child whose active engagement with the world has been encouraged from the outset will be a child and citizen of the world who is more likely to value his or her own opinion and beliefs, and the opinions and beliefs of others. Through this unique project, we aim to enable children’s experiences of participation in their homes, schools, and communities including the importance of the relational context, not only in formal structures and support their participation based on notions of competence and voice. The activities contribute to recognizing and facilitating children’s informal and social participation as well as new forms of democratic processes being developed by children to address the possibility of direct engagement of children.

Lead Applicant – Impact Centre

Project Name – Hello Neighbour: Knowing the region through internships and exchange

The regional cooperation in the Western Balkans is one of the most positively perceived approaches in the region. People from all Balkan countries are thrilled to see initiatives, exchanges and joint programs that help them know each-other from different approaches and that bring countries and people closer. Outside the region, people from the Balkan Diaspora find it comfortable and easy to befriend, to socialize, to work together, to help each-other’s study journeys, businesses and companies, to become good friends and feel a sense of commonality in each-other’s company. This is due to the excessive number of mutual elements that people from the Balkans identify in eachother once we’re out of the region. The Impact Centre project increases regional cooperation in education field, contributing directly to enhanced cooperation and Reconciliation process.

Lead Applicant – YUGO CYCLING CAMPAIGN

Project Name – Promoting the Western Balkans greenways network

This project promotes cycling in the WB and attempts successfully to coordinate efforts in three Contracting Parties, with the purpose of creating a common cycling network. The idea is to transfer the abandoned railway lines into so called greenways, i.e. specific infrastructure exclusively for cycling and hiking. The region is covered by fifth Euro Velo Routes (in this case the region is considered much bigger than the WBR), where there already organized events like “Cycling the West Balkan Triangle”, cycling along the Via Dinarica known as the White Trail, etc. But unlike the West European standards, the current trails through WBR are using the existing roads for motor vehicles, without specially designated infrastructure for cycling and walking. Thus, the main relevance of this project is to offer a possibility for transforming some motorized vehicles infrastructure (in this case railways), into greenways.

Lead Applicant – Gradjanski glas Crne Gore

Project Name – Partnership for mothers and babies

Project supports both mothers and babies through creating a comfortable space in public for breastfeeding, bottlefeeding and changing – whenever the babies need it. That means setting up functional benches with inbuilt changing tables that would facilitate their daily life needs. The impact/results project aims to achieve is to raise awareness of the importance of breastfeeding, as the best and healthiest way to feed babies, and to normalize breastfeeding in the public once and for all. And to support society to become more friendly, encouraging and supportive to all mothers and babies and at the same time cities across the region and Western Balkans to become places with better living conditions for families.

Lead Applicant – IPKO Foundation

Project Name – Game Jam

This project addresses issues related to the importance of creating new job opportunities for game developers in Kosovo and enable the exchange of experiences and knowledge between youth of Kosovo, Albania and North Macedonia. Action was developed through empowerment of game developers to further enhance their skills in game development with a focus on training female leaders in order to ensure an easier transition to the job market. The project reaches out to 2000 students.

Lead Applicant – Chamber of Trade and Industry Kosovo

Project Name – Promoting the Western Balkans greenways network

This project contributes to the regional cooperation, and strengthen regional cohesion in the WB6 region since it brings together pillars of the society that continue struggling with lack of conditions to conduct their entrepreneurial performance. Entrepreneurship sector in order to be successful, needs to have a buying force which is decreasing in Western Balkans, at the same time the labour force is looking forward to contribute more in European market rather than staying in WB. This joint initiative aims to enhance regional cooperation, strengthen regional cohesion through economic cooperation in the WB6 region. Through this initiative we aim to strengthen regional investment potentials through strengthening market linkages, networking and business partners in the Western Balkan and to exchange knowledge and experiences among chambers and businesses.

Lead Applicant – INTERA Technology Park

Project Name – Cross Border Co-working Cooperation (CBCC)

The project contributes to regional and cross-border cooperation through an innovative approach to sustainable tourism growth and economic development. The project builds a network of NGOs (and local authorities) in Western Balkans in order to share their experiences in environmental protection and of actions that can be taken and to facilitate cooperation in the future.

Lead Applicant – AGORA

Project Name – Leap to success

The project Leap to Success is a 4-month regional project where three organizations from three different Contracting Parties join their forces in order to contribute to the regional development and providing better future for the youth in the respective CP’s. With this joint effort it is aimed at stimulating and promoting youth entrepreneurship in these three CP’s. This overall objective matches with both areas of intervention of this WBF Call, the education and scientific exchange and sustainable development and promotes knowledge based entrepreneurship as source of growth and job creation, as well as it promotes initiatives for inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

Lead Applicant – Foundation for local autonomy and governance (FLAG)

Project Name – Creating a cross-border network for socioeconomic sustainability through protection of nature

Project brings together regional CSO to participate and Project brings together regional CSO to participate and cooperate together over major sustainability issues that cooperate together over major sustainability issues that confront their communities, separately and as community confront their communities, separately and as community inhabiting a shared space in Western Balkans.