Civic Belarus monitors human rights violations in Belarus, issues statements regarding imprisoned or persecuted activists and provides other forms of support.
Civic Belarus organized a two-day workshop for 21 young Belarusian activists. The main topics were structure and organization of work in NGOs, carrying out public campaigns and cooperation with the media when it isn't supportive to your efforts. The Czech trainers are leaders of successful Czech organizations (dealing with environmental and human rights issues) and thanks to their experience with post-Soviet area and Belarus in particular, they prepared a program aimed at the most common difficulties the Belarusian organizations have to face. Many participants continue cooperation with Civic Belarus in the specific questions of their organization.
Belarusian librarians made a four-day study trip to the Czech Republic to learn more about the role of libraries as social, information and educational centers for local communities. The participants made many contacts and were inspired by many ideas how to modernize and liven up the life around their libraries. They also discussed possible ways of gaining support from European funds to realize these ideas.
A librarian from Karlovy Vary Regional Library took part in the conference held in Belarus by local librarians. She talked about ways of greater involvement of libraries as social and educational centers using Czech examples. She also introduced contemporary information systems used in Czech libraries and pointed out some opportunities of financial support for libraries opened by the EU programs. This successful cooperation is to be continued.
Eight Belarusian environmentalists interested mainly in organic farming and food certification visited the Czech Republic. It is the environmental organizations that are the most professional NGOs in Belarus and Czech experience in this field provides a great potential for future cooperation. Civic Belarus will organize internships for Belarusian environmentalists, during which they would work for several days with their colleague in on Czech organization that specializes in the same field as the intern. These internships should also make it possible to work out common Belarusian-Czech projects.
A Czech lawyer delivered a lecture at a human rights summer school organized for Belarusian human rights lawyers at the Human Rights House in Vilnius. The summer school has been taking place for several years now. Czech Republic and Civic Belarus contribute by providing the space in the Human Rights House by mediating contacts with foreign experts.
Eleven NGO workers from Belarus spent a week in the Czech Republic learning about the relationship between nongovernmental and state sectors. They learned about the legal and financial conditions of Czech NGOs, met with representative of third sector and visited also an educational center for NGOs and several NGO associations. The participants were trained in organization of public campaigns and learnt about society transformation and cooperation of civil society organizations with the state and media. They met with members of the Belarusian diaspora in the Czech Republic. Civic Belarus would like to support the cooperation between the Belarusian organizations and their Czech partners. The participants showed interest in working together particularly in the areas of social projects, youth organizations and ecology.
In June we welcomed thirteen private businessman from Belarus in the Czech Republic. These were members of politically or professionally active associations. It is the entrepreneurs that take part in many protest activities and call for legislative reforms in Belarus because the state does not support private property and private enterprising enough. The businessmen were introduced to Czech legal conditions of private entrepreneurship, the Business Chamber, Trade Inspection and several business associations. They also obtained an analysis made by the World Bank comparing the economic situation in Belarus and in the world. Belarusian media (owned by the state) do not usually provide critical information and therefore the conclusions of the analyses came as a surprise to some of our Belarusian colleagues. The participants were also able to meet with members of the Parliament and representatives of the Czech MFA. We are going to follow up on this visit with working on the EU programs of economic integration primarily within the Easters Partnership program.
On 25th March Belarusian democrats celebrated the 90th anniversary of proclamation of independence of Belarusian People´s Republic. This anniversary is not accepted by the state because the present regime refers to Soviet inheritance as the basis of modern Belarusian state. The conference was held by Civic Belarus and Belarusian diaspora in the Czech Republic and among the attendants there were the Belarusians living in Prague and known figures of Belarusian prodemocratic movement from Canada, Poland and Belarus.
tel.: +420 222 955 586 | fax: +420 224 813 460 | info (at) civicbelarus.eu
Civic Belarus | Belohorska 27 | 169 00 Prague 6
