The training program for community mobilizers will engage young people throughout the country, aiming to equip them with skills in public participation and community engagement, monitoring of party platforms and government performance and/or advocacy. The training program is organized in three separate cycles.
The first cycle is dedicated to monitoring the promises of the political parties during the 2020 Parliamentary Elections. The other two cycles are envisaged to take place for the local elections in 2021, with the goal of monitoring the promises of the political parties at municipal level. Each cycle will include 3 workshops, aiming to further advance community mobilizers’ competences and help them develop monitoring and action plans aiming to raise awareness among their communities on the importance of monitoring and holding political parties and elected officials accountable for their performances.
Goal:
To develop community mobilizers’ skills and competences in public participation and community engagement, party platform monitoring, and measuring the performance of central and local governments.
Objectives:
- To develop community mobilizers’ competences needed to monitor party platforms and the degree to which these electoral promises are fulfilled;
- To equip community mobilizers with tools to perform monitoring and to measure the performance of both central and local governments;
- To increase their knowledge and understanding of concepts such as community mobilization, evidence-based public policies, and the difference between central and local governments; and
- To facilitate the process of creating monitoring plans and plans for community actions and mobilization.
Results:
- Increased competences and skills of the community mobilizers in the areas of monitoring party platforms and central and local governments’ performances;
- Increased knowledge about community mobilization, the process of creating public policies, and difference between central and local governments;
- Plans for monitoring electoral campaign programs of political parties and action plans for community mobilization.
COMMUNITY MOBILIZERS
Who are they?
Community Mobilizers are civil society actors, media representatives, and citizens who are active in their communities. After training, and with coaching and mentoring assistance provided by NYCM, they are expected to monitor the platforms and rhetoric of political parties and candidates. The Community Mobilizers will also measure the degree to which elected officials are implementing their promised platforms and/or how governments are performing, vis-à-vis promised results.
For the first round of Community Mobilizers, the project team engaged 17 young activists from throughout the country. Three of the Community Mobilizers will be active within Skopje region and two community mobilizers will be active in each of remaining 7 other development regions.
What will they do?
- Throughout the duration of the project, Community Mobilizers will undergo a series of trainings and workshops to further develop skills in public participation and community engagement, monitor party platforms and government performance or interacting with elected representatives and/or advocacy. During these capacity building stages, each of the community mobilizer, with the help of mentors and trainers, will choose a monitoring topic.
- After the parliamentary elections in 2020, the community mobilizers will start with the process of monitoring their selected topic, and will report the findings in pre-defined monitoring matrix. The mobilizers will receive a monthly stipend while participating in this program.
- During the monitoring process, the community mobilizers will engage in different activities that will document/evidence the monitoring process and how the political parties (government) is keeping their electoral promises. The evidence can be presented in the form of short videos (one-minute mini-documentaries on stories of public interest, using mobile phone cameras and editing software), disseminated through social media and a dedicated platform such as a project website. To accomplish this, the community mobilizers will undergo video production training.
- The community mobilizers will also implement small-scale innovative initiatives. The initiatives will be proposed by the mobilizers and will be related to monitoring. The main objective of the initiative implementation is to mobilize the community to actively engage in political life and keep an eye on the work of those elected to power. The implementation of these initiatives will be paid for by the project (in-kind).
Mentorship support
Community mobilizers will receive mentorship from NYCM. Through its regional offices around the country, NYCM will support the Community Mobilizers in developing and implementing the acquired knowledge and skills as they undertake their monitoring and advocacy initiatives. Each of the Community Mobilizers will work closely with his/her designed mentor.
