Balkans: democratic participation for a sustainable future
Posted by Daniele Bora on April 28th 2008 in NEED Magazine, Organizations
Photo | Maciej DakowiczIf you ever happen to be visiting the Balkans, I suggest you get up early and fill your stomach up with an abundant breakfast: lots of coffee, bread and jam, a couple of eggs if you are not vegan. This is especially true if your plans include interviewing local residents for a story on microfinance and development programs commissioned for the upcoming Issue 5 of NEED magazine.
Locals do not see anything wrong in drinking alcohol rather early in the morning, and they will seize any occasion to offer some homemade slivovitz — a colorless brandy-like beverage made of distilled fermented plum juice — to the sympathetic visitor. It is a welcoming ritual that, at an average of 45% alcohol content per volume in a country with a cool, Central European climate, literally warms people up.
In my case, it helped to break down the initial formalities with folks whose language I did not speak, but in whose stories I was deeply interested in for the reportage that you will soon be able to read.
Photo | Maciej Dakowicz
Today, however attached to their culinary traditions they may be, people in the Balkans are eagerly looking at the future. After going through historical, dramatic, and often painful upheavals, all that they can think of is to finally start economic and social improvements, as they clearly see it will lead them to sustainable prosperity.
Since 1999, the American organization CHF International has been working in the region to help bringing these changes about. Thanks to its global experience acquired in more than 100 countries, and to its successful partnership with donors such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), it brings together the people, organizations and resources necessary to ensure steady, sustainable change and strengthen local communities.
Photo | Maciej Dakowicz
“Our mission is to be a catalyst for long-lasting positive change in low- and moderate-income communities helping them to improve their social, economic and environmental conditions,” says Jennifer Hyman, CHF’s communication manager. “Catalyst is the key word here – we provide people with the resources that so that they can do similar work on their own. They are enabled through new processes and ideas, better ways of working together, engaging their governments, leveraging financial resources, so that they can continue improving their own lives without our assistance.”
CHF International indeed works on a wide range of diverse projects in countries such as Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro: microfinance initiatives that include small business, home improvement, and income generation loans dispensed to an increasing number of private individuals; financial and logistical assistance to local governments to foster decentralization of power; creation and support of local organizations that can continue the legacy initiated by CHF. In all these instances, help is provided according to the needs of each community and following the priorities set by local residents.
Doing so also contributes to the ultimate goal of promoting democratic participation, a concept relatively new in a region that has been accustomed for most of its history to authoritarian regimes, centralized power, and and a lack of positive and open debate.
Photo | Maciej Dakowicz
Hyman says: “Microfinance helps foster democratic decision making in that it provides resource-poor community members with access to the funds and resources they need to be active, participating members of society. It’s not as direct a link as some of our other interventions, but when you consider the things that microfinance tends to make possible, the connection starts to come into better focus. When people can have access to finance to send their kids to school, to live in a decent home, to build a better business, they are better able to spend the time to engage in contributing to the development of their communities at large.”
Read the full story accompanied by Maciej Dakowicz’s latest photographic essay in NEED magazine’s upcoming Issue 5.
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