The team of Journalists for Human Rights wishes you happy holidays filled with joy, and much success and happiness in the New Year! As we reflect on the past year, we are grateful for all the fruitful collaborations, as well as your invaluable contribution to our work. With your support, our team has achieved many exciting achievements, including:

Reduction of the VAT rate on menstrual products from 18 to 5 percent, which once again showed that through cooperation with all those who supported us in this initiative, you proved that the fight for the common good is our guiding star… We will fight next year as well that all girls involved in the educational process receive free menstrual products…We must not forget that MENSTRUATION IS NOT A LUXURY!!!

A developed system for early warning of missing children, a pilot project which in partnership with EKPAT Austria, and with the support of the Federal Ministry of Social Policy, Health, Care and Consumer Protection of Austria will continue in the coming year, and with which system will try to prevent, inform and cooperate in easier and faster finding of missing children. We organized three study visits in Vienna, set up the website www.najdime.mk and organized a conference in Skopje, sharing the achievements in setting up a system for early warning of missing children.

Through the project “Increasing awareness of menstrual waste and inclusion of vulnerable groups of women through the production of a reusable menstrual pad in RSMacedonia – Budget Mom”, funded by the Small Grants Program (SGP) of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), WECF and the program Women 2030, we organized and conducted multiple workshops to set up social enterprises that will sew the first certified reusable menstrual pad. One hundred women gained additional experience on this topic, three social enterprises will sew the pad, and the first 100 packages will be donated to women at risk.

The project Budget – Mom was chosen as one of the five most innovative projects in the non-technological solutions for gender climate justice program!!! With this project, women get an alternative in managing menstrual poverty, provide themselves with new jobs, reduce menstrual waste and influence the improvement of sexual and reproductive health.

Women’s rights, fighting for climate justice is a topic that we started this year and we will deal with in the next ones as well. Women must have the right to voice their needs in the fight against climate change. Thirty women discussed this topic and declared that climate justice

Through the WatSan project, we have been working on sustainable water management for the past year. In that direction, we are introducing and further developing the Water Safety and Sanitation Planning (WSSP) instrument. The WSSP demonstrates methods for risk analysis and assessment of water and sanitation systems and explains measures to minimize risks and improve the water and sanitation situation. In various educational activities, the WSSP complex already developed by us will be presented to various stakeholders from education, administration, politics and institutions. Thirty teachers acquired additional knowledge on the subject of water, 200 students participated in our awareness-raising activities for sustainable water management… We organized 3 workshops, networked with new organizations, are participating in the preparatory conference on water that will be held next year held in New York, 300 citizens tested the water with nitrate tests.

This year and next, we are working on the implementation of the Pros4Democracy Project, which is part of the ERASMUS youth program and foresees several workshops on the topic of voting and youth participation in elections, as well as a five-day workshop in Malta. about European values, active citizenship and media literacy. In parallel with this, we conducted workshops at the national level, through which we convey to the participants European values and the necessity of youth participation in elections.

Under the leadership of the Center for Research and Policy Making (CIKP) and in partnership with the project partners EHO from Shtip, Rural Coalition from Kumanovo, we are implementing the project “Through women’s lenses: raising policies and budget initiatives, monitoring the implementation of local action plans for gender equality. We have conducted 17 community forums in order to identify the needs and priorities of women and men…And in the coming year we will work on evaluations of policies/policy models, as well as on the final research to determine the change in needs and attitudes, the perception of gender equality, participation and decision-making.

Journalists for Human Rights has become part of the international network of trainers for empowering victims through self-defense techniques – ESD. For this purpose, two of our presentations girls were certified for carrying out the trainings, and three dozen young people followed the introductory trainings, all with the aim of strengthening them through self-defense. Next year will be the year of promotion and implementation of ESD in the educational system

We strengthened the office in Resen and as part of the regional office of the National Council for Gender Equality, we implemented a series of actions. We put women councilors from different political parties on the same page, distributed humanitarian aid to 100 families…

Within the framework of the EURENI project, we are working on chemical safety and raising awareness of the need for transparency of products about the chemical composition.

In collaboration with the World March of Women, we established the Feminist School, which from this year will receive the first students from the Western Balkans and Turkey.

We have worked on three continents, participated in over fifty international conferences and workshops, shared good practices at COP 27, the Ministerial Conference on the Environment, at the working groups for the implementation of the Aarhus Convention and the Water and Health Protocol, at the working session on chemicals… New challenges await us next year. First of all, let’s finish the started activities, but also realize the ideas for social housing, eradication of energy poverty, zero VAT for hygiene products and return of drinking water only in glass bottles!!!

If 2022 is the year of menstrual justice for us, we wish the next year to be the year of climate justice!!!

We work globally, we act locally.

Thank you for your support and we look forward to continuing our cooperation in the new year!