Enclavia 
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In 2006, IKV-Pax Christi from Holland and NGO Fractal from Belgrade successfully started and implemented the pilot phase of the Enclavia project. Project Enclavia continued during the year 2007, with a focus on making lobbying and self-advocacy a common practice, even a basic and structural element of a new, modern political culture, which is developing within the Serbian community in Kosovo. In the four past years of our activities, we did research on the existing capacities for civic initiatives in the different Serbian enclaves; also we held 20 public debates and 8 trainings in lobbying and self-advocacy trainings and we formed a yearly lobby group that met representatives of national and international institutions based in Pristina, Belgrade, Brussels and Den Haag. During these visits and meetings, existential needs of the community have been presented, as well recommendations to resolve the problems and challenges that the Serbian community is dealing with. In 2008 the context has changed. In the first place the proclamation of the independence of Kosovo on 17th February has polarized positions and relations between various political stakeholders in the region and in the world. All problems we have faced during two years of project activities are put aside because of the Kosovo status issue. The majority of the Serbian community in Kosovo is not actively involved in the work of institutions and is therefore limited in its opportunities to address problems. Belgrade doesn’t have direct jurisdiction and capacity to respond to local needs and problems; the international community and Kosovo institutions still face problems in establishing communication and cooperation with the Serbian community due to a large level skepticism towards their work. Due to this communication vacuum, Serbs living in enclaves are in a very unviable situation with limited perspective for community preservation and development. In 2009 Fractal project team followed-up on previous lobby visits and made sure that the lobby issues from previous years remain in the focus in 2009. Fractal has been also committed to involve and increase youth activism and participation in enclaves, especially with regards to decentralization process. Nevertheless, the process of decentralization is not finished after the establishment of new municipalities and we are aware that following support should be focused on the development of new municipalities to see a growing sustainable future for Kosovo Serbian community in Kosovo. Giving a “voice” to the new municipalities and the chance to be heard by decision makers will be our goal in 2010. Enclavia 2010 project will help to achieve this goal by activities which will include working on community – local authority’s dialogue in order to define issues for community development initiatives. These activities will be conducted in forms of town hall meetings, trainings and lobby visits. After several years of activities, we are aware of the impact that Enclavia had in the Serbian community in enclaves in terms of their capacities to successfully communicate with other communities and institutions, and in terms of capacities of community representatives who participated in Enclavia activities, especially in lobby visits. Moreover, debates emphasized certain problems which exist on the local level in enclaves but, while lobby visits demonstrated that there is space to address problems in communication with institutions, and that it is possible to find a common denominator between different stakeholders even in an increasingly turbulent political and social context. However, we are fully conscious of the fact that this is a long term process, which requires a lot of energy, effort and commitment. |
