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Reconciliation
 

Dialogue and reconciliation


About the programme

At the end of 2004, NDC Skopje decided to start with new programme “ Dialogue and Reconciliation” which will be realized in only one multiethnic municipality as a pilot programme. A municipality with  huge multiethnic problems was looked for, and the objective of the programme was promoting the Nansen dialogue, its application and coming up with concrete, measurable and visual  positive results in that municipality. The team of NDC Skopje visited the municipalities: Petrovec, Chucher Sandevo, Tearce and Jagunovce where  interviews with the mayors and part of the citizens  were made.


We decided on the Jegunovce municipality.

The rural, multi-ethnic municipality of Jegunovce in 2001 was occupied by the armed conflict and in 2002 as a result and as a consequence of the conflict there was a multi-ethnic intolerance in education, specifically in the central primary school “Shemsevo” where until 2001, more than 700 Macedonian and Albanian students from fifth to eight grade studied together. Through political and medium manipulation of a certain part of the citizens from Jegunovce, the multi-ethnic intolerance culminated from protests and blockades on the roads in Macedonia to a possibility of destabilization of the country. With the help of the domestic public institutions, the Ministry of Education, the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic of Macedonia, the international mediation of the ambassadors of OBSE, USA and the European Commission in Macedonia, a mutual acceptable solution to the problem of the central primary school of “Shemshevo” was found- physical division of students (Macedonians and Albanians) on ethnic basis, actually Macedonian students to leave the central primary school in Shemshevo and continue study in the surrounding, regional, ethnically  Macedonian primary schools. (more details...)

All this was an enormous challenge to the team of NDC Skopje and believed that the need of their presence in this municipality was huge.


In the programme “Dialogue and Reconciliation” was foreseen to include all the relevant subjects from the municipality (the mayor, the members of the Committee of the municipality, the presidents of local communities, the principals of schools, teachers, students and their parents) who can make contribution towards solving a part of the problems with which the citizens from Jegunovce face and which appeared as a consequence of the armed conflict in 2001.


According to the information from the interviews made with the mayor, the principals of the schools, the teachers, the presidents of local communities and the parents of the students from fifth to eight grade, as the most prior problems with which the municipality of Jegunovce faced were: the existence of high multiethnic tensions and disrupted relationships, division of students on ethnic basis and bad technical and infrastructural conditions in education, infrastructural problems (not having clean water to drink and sanitation, bad roads), fear to move freely, unemployment….


The focus of the activities of the programme was put on:


- Education

- Local self-government