ISC | Macedonia

Macedonia

Macedonia

Since 1995, ISC has worked with the people of Macedonia to help them build a strong and stable nonprofit sector that would be able to serve ordinary citizens and represent their interests. At the same time, we have worked at the grassroots level to help community groups work alongside government and business to solve pressing local problems. Our most recent project in Macedonia closed in June 2010. Visit that website here.

Over the years, ISC has given grants, training, and assistance to welll over 300 nonprofit organizations throughout Macedonia and helped grassroots community groups address a wide range of issues. We have worked with a core group of nonprofits to help them become strong leaders that can support the sector as a whole long into the future.

Tangible Results

We have worked with several Roma (formerly called Gypsy) organizations and communities to help them overcome extreme poverty, lack of education, discrimination, and poor living conditions. Today, we are helping two Roma-staffed nonprofits, one that advocates on behalf of Roma people, and another that provides support to other nonprofits in the area.
As the number of people infected with HIV rapidly grew in Macedonia, ISC helped two nonprofits, HOPS and HERA, form a nationwide coalition that created the country's first national strategy on HIV/AIDS and went on to win a $6.8 million grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
In 2003, ISC's Macedonian staff formed a new nonprofit, the Center for Institutional Development, that helps nonprofit organizations and local communities achieve social change. Today, the center is promoting domestic philanthropy as part of ISC's current program to strengthen civil society in Macedonia.

Shaping Macedonia’s Future

In Spring 2010, ISC celebrated 15 years in Macedonia by completing a five-year project that helped make Macedonia’s civil society—the nonprofit sector—a more effective, influential, and permanent partner alongside government and businesses in shaping the country today and in the future.

Building a Stronger Civil Society

Since 1995, ISC has worked with nonprofit organizations in Macedonia to help them address their communities' most critical needs, from cleaning up a devastated environment to building economic opportunity to protecting basic human rights.

Communities Tackle Tough Problems

Working with communities across Macedonia, ISC has helped businesses, nonprofits, schools, and civic organizations come together to solve pressing local problems, such as installing a sewage system to halt a hepatitis outbreak.

Helping Macedonia's Roma Secure Their Rights

The mood at Mesecina, a local nonprofit that provides much-needed assistance to the Roma in Macedonia, is brighter these days as it uses the training and mentoring provided by ISC to ensure that their valuable work will thrive well into the future.

Stories from Macedonia

For the last five years, ISC has supported the development of civil society organizations in Macedonia. We have worked with 150 nonprofits in 34 cities throughout the country, building their capacity to meet local community needs.

These are some of their stories.