Catalyst Balkans is a regional nonprofit that provides data and tech for other nonprofits and companies to help them do more good in their communities.
Forum for Civic Initiatives (FIQ) has granted this year’s awards for the philanthropic contributions of individuals, organizations and companies in Kosovo. The awards are granted to those who systematically contribute to preserving the environment, culture, and traditional values with sensitivity through projects serving the common good.
The coronavirus has had (and still holds) a massive impact on each of us, and every living being has different mechanisms of dealing with it. The same is the case with nonprofit organizations – each with unique experiences overcoming obstacles and adapting to new pandemic circumstances.
That is why we singled out additional four examples of nonprofit organizations and associations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. Our recent interviews revealed how the pandemic crisis has affected their work over the past two years and how their collective has changed.
Interviews with many nonprofit organizations across the Western Balkans during the current and the previous year provided us with a slightly clearer insight into how they are coping with the aftermath of the pandemic. What do their regular activities look like? How did they proceed with the implementation of their programs? How demanding was it to move from the physical to the online world without denying the many forms of support they provide to their users?
You will find some of the answers in this text, where the Association MoSt from Croatia, Žene Bara from Montenegro, KRIK from Northern Macedonia, and Kosovo Women's Network enabled us to learn some of the examples of practices used in the region, as well as ways to adapt to new rules of the COVID-19 virus pandemic.
Coronavirus significantly affects human lives and poses a threat to our health and society as a whole. The global threat of the Covid-19 virus motivated and inspired the company Nextsense from Skopje to contribute to joint efforts in the fight against the global pandemic. To support global efforts to stop coronavirus spread, Nextsense has developed contact tracking technology and provides it free of charge to other countries.
Nextsense donated its technology to Northern Macedonia and Hungary, which was implemented in mobile applications for tracking contacts, in addition to the government's measures in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
Northern Macedonia has implemented the StopKorona! app to track contacts. Additionally, Hungary has launched the VirusRadar mobile app to allow health authorities to identify potentially exposed people more quickly and break the coronavirus transmission chain, preventing a potential new epidemic.
Let's find out more about their contribution from the app's creators.
As the Covid-19 virus is still present in our lives, we reviewed nonprofit organizations from the region, which explained to us in 2020 and 2021 how the pandemic affected their work, daily activities, and lives in general.
It is possible that some of their systemic adaptations to new circumstances inspire other organizations that encounter this text to devise new ways or apply some of the existing examples in their program activities.
In today's text, you will be able to get to know some of the prominent organizations from the Western Balkans and their methods of adapting to the new normality.
