The Building Bridges Fund
This country is truly wealthy in many ways, not least in its diversity of people, culture and languages.
Its Constitution alone mentions 7 communities while in its 81 municipalities you will find 6 different languages in official use, with education being provided in 5 different mother tongues across the country.
As we all know, though, it is not affluent in all ways and sometimes the care, and often the funds, needed to capitalize on the richness of its diversity are in short supply. Not investing in this wealth, though, and disallowing new generations to understand, nourish and enjoy it, leaves diversity without bridges, spelling division. It might even degrade diversity into a negative value that potentially undermines the prosperity and safety of a country and its kids. No state should allow this to happen, least of all one with a history and variety as rich as this one.
New generations need bridges to each other and open access to the riches and joys of diversity, especially at schools that should prepare them for an integrated future in a diverse Europe.
The “Building Bridges Fund”, established in 2014, hopes to modestly contribute to that.
In a joint effort by the Ministry of Education and Science, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Governments of Ireland and Switzerland and the OSCE Mission to Skopje it offers support to municipalities, students, teachers, parents and schools that see the need for increased interaction, understanding and integration in their communities and schools.
This support takes the form of opening easy access to grants for multilingual schools, or paired monolingual ones, to organize joint activities involving students from all their communities and different languages of instruction.
These activities can take many forms, from municipalities organizing series of events with all their schools, to students setting up joint rehearsal rooms, IT workshops, fashion shows or DJ sets; teachers running series of mixed events, parents getting active in after-school activities or schools cooperating with others.
Possibilities are endless and no strict limits are set as long as students with different languages of instruction are positively involved and bridges are being built. This seems most likely when activities:
ü Are part of a series of events, not just one-offs, unless they are likely to spark a future series;
ü Lead towards a mutually desired joint product reached through a cooperative process involving students from different communities, including the creation and equipping of joint spaces;
ü Are truly “mixed” and avoid pitting communities against each other in events, like competitions setting one school or language of instruction against another;
ü Focus on activities that emphasize actual interests that all students share, not backgrounds that differentiate them (like community traditions, folklore, food, dress etc.);
ü Take place in public spaces instead of just within closed school environments;
ü Equally involve boys and girls, as well as those with special needs and active parents;
ü Exclude political activities but never any community.
When these activities are rather spontaneous or urgent, “rapid grants” can accommodate the activity taking place in 1 month from us receiving the application if the activities do indeed “build a bridge” and need no more than 1.500 Euro to do it. You can apply for these at any time.
“Regular grants” of up to 7.000 Euro will have to apply against 3 application deadlines in 2016, after which an independent Advisory Board will decide on which proposed bridges are going to be built.
This means that you will have to plan these activities well in advance as these can be accommodated at the earliest one month after the Advisory Board has decided positively, which in practice would mean in about 2 months after an application deadline date (1 March, 1 May, 1 October 2016).
The Advisory Board has the following Honorary Members:
· H.E. Nina Suomalainen, Head of the OSCE Mission to Skopje;
· H.E. Wouter Plomp, Ambassador, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands;
· Arlinda Idrizi, Advisor Political and Economic Affairs, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands;
· Safet Neziri, Anastasija Trajkovska, George Nikolov, State Advisors Ministry of Education and Science (MoES);
· Redzep Ali Cupi, Director Promotion & Development of Minority Language Education MoES;
· Arbenita Ismani-Sakipi, Head of Sector for International Cooperation, SIOFA
· Irena Orovchanec, Advisor, Agency for Community Rights Realization;
· Edin Hajdarpashic, Journalist / News Anchor , TV 24 Vesti;
· Toni Zen, music artist; Rebeka, music artist/ inclusion NGO; Venera Lumani, music artist;
· Arno van der Pas, Senior Coordinator Inter-Ethnic Relations, BB Project Manager, OSCE Mission.
Some, or all, of them will at times gladly join the launch of the activities you will organize.
If you want to apply for a grant you should submit a filled application form, which can be done by e-mail () for the “rapid grants” at any time or by regular mail (P.O. Box 558, 1000 Skopje) for the “regular” ones before the 3 set deadlines for applying, being 1 March, 1 May and 1 October 2016. The forms are part of this document and can also be downloaded from the website of the Ministry of Education and Science (Building Bridges) in any of the 6 languages that are in official use somewhere in the country. They can also be filled in these languages but always have to provide an English version as well.
The 6 simple questions in the form should all be answered and an overview of the material needs to realize the activity/intervention should be provided.
Please note that the Building Bridges (BB) Fund does not disperse money but buys the needed material and/or services for you, meaning that you only have to provide an estimate of the costs you foresee after which the BB will take care of the rest.
Grant requests may involve material investments that will allow for future continuation independent of the grant but these should be directly and very obviously linked to the proposed activities.
The Building Bridges Fund discourages applications focused on the various customs, folklore, food, dress and heritages that differentiate communities in favor of more modern concepts of integration that focus on what all communities practically share, which is so much more.
All in all, we hope and feel that the Building Bridges fund opens up great opportunities to give new generations open access to the riches of diversity and enjoy it. We therefore strongly encourage you to use the possibilities it offers to build the bridges that your community, your municipality, your schools and your kids need and deserve.
Building Bridges Fund Application
General Information / Information on the School (-s)Name of the Applicant School: / Primary or Secondary:
Central and/or Satellite:
Address: / Municipality: / Number of Students:
Phone/Fax: / Number of Teachers:
E-mail: / Language (-s) of Instruction:
School Director: / Number of Shifts:
Mixed or Separate:
Contact Person: / Current Joint Activities:
Name of the Partner School/s:
1.
2.
3. / Municipality/ies:
1.
2.
3. / Primary or Secondary:
1.
2.
3. / Language/s of instruction:
1.
2.
3.
Total amount requested / MKD
Questions:
1. What’s the Plan?
Please describe the activity/intervention you would like to organize or implement, how and by who. Please describe the planned activity, not previous projects or activities that were implemented before.
2. Who are involved?
Please provide details on the students that will be involved; their age, class, gender, languages of instruction etc.:
a) Number of students directly involved in activities______
b) Age of students/class______
c) Gender______
d) Language/s of instruction______
Specify who will be the main responsible person(-s) for implementing this activity / intervention and will provide a short activity report in the end:
Name: ______
Surname: ______
Position: ______
Mobile phone: ______
E-mail: ______
3. Where and When?
Please describe the location(-s) where the activity/intervention is planned, the timeframe of implementation, number of students involved and person responsible, in the table below.
Describe the activity in details / Location / Time/date / Number of students involved / Person responsible / SchoolActivity 1:
Activity 2:
Activity 3:
Activity 4:
Activity 5:
Activity 6:
Activity 7:
4. Will it be the first time?
Specify if you -or your school- have already organized this, or something similar, before and, if so, with whose support, when and what results.
5. What do you need?
Provide details on the exact material needs of your proposal, including equipment, services, fees, provisions and give your estimate of their costs.
Item / Amount / Estimated Cost Per Item / Total1.
2.
Estimated Grand Total / MKD
6. And then what?
Specify how, and how often, you will continue joint activities after this grant is spent, especially when you are requesting equipment or renovations.