Regional Platform for advocating media freedom and safety of journalists in the Western Balkans has the honour of presenting outputs of Small Grant Programme, which took place during years 2017 and 2018 within the bigger project “Protecting Media Freedom and Freedom of Expression in the Western Balkans”. Some of the content produced during that period will be presented during December on Safejournalists.net.
During 2017. and 2018. 15 projects were funded through the Small Grants Programme in two LOTs (4 regional and 11 national projects) in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo* and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
All projects have been implemented from October 2017 until September 2018 and they are now in their final review phase. The outputs of the Small Grants Programme vary from documentaries and investigative journalists’ stories to citizen-journalism schools and the establishment of non-profit media outlets. During the project implementation time, more than 1500 articles in 5 countries were published dealing with media freedom, it’s protection and Freedom of expression.
The objective of this small grants programme was to amplify advocacy efforts undertaken by local, national and regional civil society actors in collaboration with journalists and media organizations and to set topics of media freedom and journalists’ safety on mainstream agenda in the SEE region – more specifically Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Kosovo*, Montenegro and Serbia.
The Small Grants Programme supported locally and regionally rooted civil society initiatives, engaging human rights activists, journalists and media, aiming to protect the freedom of expression and freedom of media.
During December we will highlight some of the produced content.
The small grants programme was funded by IPA /EU with co-financing from the Croatian Government Office for NGOs and matching funds from grantees; it is part of a regional project Western Balkan’s Regional Platform for Advocating Media Freedom and Journalists’ Safety implemented through partnership of five regional journalists’ associations and one journalists’ union– Independent Journalists Association of Serbia (IJAS), Association of BH Journalists (BHJ), Croatian Journalists Association (CJA), Association of Journalists of Kosovo (AJK), Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM) and the Trade Union of Media of Montenegro (TUMM).
Croatian Journalists’ Association and its regional partner journalists’ associations thank all subgrantees and other participants for their interest and effort in engaging in the Small Grants Programme and for their cooperation throughout the whole application and project implementation process.