European Movement in Serbia, Local council Zrenjanin operates in the central North-East region of Serbia, in Banat.
Zrenjanin (Veliki Beckerek, Petrovgrad) used to be one of the most developed towns in the former Socialistic Republic of Yugoslavia in the fields of culture, sport, transportation, etc.
In the last fifteen year the town of Zrenjanin has been experienced a great fall of those fields and so has the sort of region and many other places in Banat.
The Local council of EMinS has been trying to revitalize, normalize and strengthen broken connections with neighboring countries and many other European countries. Also we spread the idea of multicultural and unity in Banat.
One specific thing about EMinS Zrenjanin is that each action or a project should have a sequel, to other long-term benefits, i.e. to be continued in another form. The local council itself has risen from a big International conference on SMEs, held in the autumn of 1997. in Zrenjanin and Ecka, organized by the EMinS from Belgrade. It was registered as the first Local council of EMinS in December 8th 1997. It started to operate in 10 sections that became independent over the time. They became new NGOs lead by our members who continued our ideas, mission and goal achievements this contributed in development of a civic society and creation of multy-parties system in the region. A core of human resources has been created so that many members educated in Zrenjanin take important positions in the Local government and media, our institutions, agencies and politics. This could be achieved since our members took participation in many seminars, congresses, conferences, trainings, work-shops, study-trips both in the country and abroad.
In the last 8 years about 50 major actions and projects in 8 fields have been completed: In the fields of SMEs, informational technologies, humanitarian actions, multicultural, civic society development, human rights, security and politics. These projects were lesd trough educational activities first in Zrenjanin and then EMinS Zrenjanin spread its activities on the whole region of Banat as well as in one part of region of Backa. Many discussions, round tables, pre-election activities, literal promotions, exhibitions and campaign have been organized by the EMinS in Zrenajnin. Among all of them we would like to distinguish the celebration of the Europe Day that traditionally starts with the concert of multiconfesional spiritual music of Banat with the participation of many famous chorus of the region. Out of the project “Over the paths of peace, tolerance solidarity and creativity” many other activities raised and they became traditional. We organize them on our streets before and after the “European Day” where the participation is taken by the nursery school and primary school children, musically gifted students, brass orchestra and others.
The greatest multicultural project of EMinS in Zrenjanin is the project “Banat Studies”. The project has been running for the last five years in the form of gathering materials and researches of the history of Banat and Zrenjanin. Our rich multicultural history has been researching by studying the oldest local newspapers that were published for the firs time in 1851 (first in German language, then in Hungarian and now in Serbian). The result of this project will be a great monography in two chapters.
Many of the Zrenjanins EMinS projects are mutually connected, mostly by the informatics. Informative technologies have always been a great challenge for the members of the local council, especially from 1999 when the Fond for open society gave us five computers over the “Interteka” project. We worked days and nights on education at our NGO members, so the equipment was used by Medias and students as well. We also opened the first internet site: www.zrenjanin.com, it has been regularly updated. The site was of great importance during the period when we had rigid official Medias before democratic changes in our country.
We are free to say that the site contributed in opening the official site of the Municipality of Zrenjanin www.zrenjanin.org.yu. With this, our site accomplished its mission and stopped to function.
Besides taking a part in the project “With a computer against censorship”, internet made a connection among NGOs. In 2001 a great cross-border project “Democracy Online” started. It was done in cooperation with the Centre for Democracy from Timisoara and ADF (American Development Foundation), Romania. With the project a regional informative service center was created which enables swapping of information among NGO centers in Romania and Serbia. A unique data base of NGOs at two countries was created and it can be seen on internet site: www.regionalnet.org. Hence, this has strengthened civic society especially in the Serbian and Romanian part of Banat.
In the South East Europe NGO fair, in Timisoara in September 2001, our local council of EMinS gained the first prize as “the most successful partner” among 30 partners on a netting project of cross-border cooperation. At the same time this project was prized as the best one in South East Europe for the year 2001.
The local council was focused on humanitarian activities in the period at 2000 and 2001. Thanks to IRD (International relief development). A great help for hospitals, health centers, schools and socially jeopardize citizens was provided trough two programs: ALT-NET and LWR. We created a data base with social cards, computer programmed. Also, we educated a great number of volunteers. We also formed MAC (Municipality Advisory council) with the representatives of local government, centre for social work, Red Cross, refugee society and NGOs.
At the same time an one-year project”Psycho-physical preparation of pregnant women for painless labor” started its life with the presence of our members who are specialists in medicine as well as other medical workers. This program continued to work in other departments which means that we initiated and gave wings to even such fields of social work.
Since the year of 2002 we have been organizing seminars and discussions. We also published articles in our local newspapers about the human rights with the specific stress on youth, children rights and multiculture.
In the July 2002 we guest students and activists of NGOs from Bosnian and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia. This was an step point to create an informal group “Young EMinS members” who took part in an UNDP project “Give up of arms” which has been revealed in order to raise awareness about the danger of arm use. It was in the spring of the year 2004 in the region at Middle Banat. Within the project we educated young population, also we distributed leaflets, made video clips, inquires. We organized a competition in art, and discussed on these activities in television with the presence of the Municipal president, the head of the Ministry of foreign affairs, members of EMinS and young activists. Young people made a great contribution in pre-election activities from the year of 1998 to 2004. EMinS in Zrenjanin took an active part in all campaigns we organized numerous actions for gaining greater number of voters, especially the new ones. We organized duels of candidates in many local communities at the Backa and Mid-Banat especially in the places where there are no NGOs, in the so called “White spots”. The greatest successes are in the fact that all the invited parts came and took part in our round tables, and debates. They were both from Democratic parties and none democratic ones, which proves that EMinS Zrenjanin gained confidence through many campaigners with many parties. Consequently we can easily reach any local self government in Banat. This was very useful in other projects we revealed all over the region like “EMinS educational/informative centre”. The project was supported by the Freedom House in 2003. The project connects NGO sector locally and regionally. It also raised the capacity at the NGO and made it closer to local governments and media for the purpose at more transparent and democratic society. The further results at the project where NGO centre foundation, and also the citizen council in Zrenjanin, as independent NGOs. Further educational activities in 10 municipalities of Banat consisted of seminars for project writing, presentation of new law of local self government and citizen initiatives, defining of local problems and the importance of lobbing. These activities were within the project “Banat cross-border dialogue” supported by BTD. The project is our greatest project in 2004 and according to the evaluation made by the participants. Also we spread our net and contacts, strengthened NGO sector and enabled participation of other Banatian municipalities in this sort of education. Also, we gained experience in working on wider areas; we made many contacts and assistants all over the Banat. We stayed in touch with donators and cooperate in their projects. Many of them we met again in work group meetings of European Agency for socio-economical development of Banat in Zrenjanin. Afterwards we contributed in their tender that has been closed recently, both with our project and within projects where our organization is a partner. One of the results of a good cooperation between EMinS and the local government is a grant and adaptation of a two-storey building of 1000 m2 where most of NGOs reside, which is a unique example in our country. Cooperation with the local government enabled the realization of our idea of “Regional Centre for development of SMEs” with the support of European Agency for reconstruction.
European Movement in Zrenjanin cooperates directly with many none governmental organizations as well as many local councils of European Movement in Kikinda, Pancevo, Vrsac. It also has wide net in Banat and it is ready to realize regional and cross border projects at any moment.
In many achieved cooperation we stress the cooperation with foreign foundation and donators such as: USAID, IRD, ADF, and Foundation for open society, Freedom House, German Marshal Fond, Konrad Adenauer Stifftung, Balkan Trust for Democracy, UNDP and Euro regional centre for democracy, Timisoara.
In the end it is important to point out an exceptional cooperation with the central EMinS office in Belgrade, with who we’re realized numerous activities and projects in the last 8 years.
All our activities are to be seen in detail on our web site www.epuszr.org.yu which is available in 5 languages (Serbian, English, Hungarian, Romanian and German).