Peer learning projects in North Macedonia shows how democratic and sustainable activities can be integrated into everyday life.
The conference room of the Hotel Story in Skopje is buzzing with activity. The peer trainers from Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka and Skopje are getting ready to present the projects they have planned and implemented over the past eight months. Peer projects, that was the requirement: young people with young people, parents with parents. The Sustainable Democratic Culture (SUDECU) project has been in active implementation since February 2024, after two years of planning. SUDECU aims to empower young people and parents to plan and implement activities and initiatives with their peers that strengthen everyday democracy and contribute to the social, environmental and economic sustainability of society. It is of central importance that these activities are not realised for a specific target group, but in the sense of peer learning together withall participants and beneficiaries. Peer learning is seen as an innovative educational strategy for North Macedonia which aims to transform competences from mere knowledge into skills.
During the three-day workshop in October, the project leaders from the local NGO TAKT (Magdalena Spasovska, Tamara Ivanovska, Irena Ivanovska, Simon Trajkovski and Miki Shishovski), the University of Skopje (Maja Raunik Kirkov) and the Department for International Projects in Education (IPE) of the Zurich University of Teacher Education (Séverine Chuffart Balmer, Nadine Ritzer and Rolf Gollob) wanted to learn from the experiences of the seven projects that have been set up. Particular attention was paid to whether the achievements in terms of content had enabled significant peer-specific processes to take place, and to the extent to which the participants were aware of this. The audience was amazed and very appreciative to see that a wide variety of exciting and socially relevant initiatives had emerged, dealing with environmental issues (greener Skopje, bee hotels, hidden green spaces), intergenerational cooperation (getting to know and cooking old recipes in teams of seniors and children), as well as issues of political and social engagement through graffiti art in public spaces.
The NGO TAKT, which has many years of experience in supporting and implementing social projects, especially with young people, is a strong partner for IPE. The dedicated team supported and empowered the peer trainers of all ages and laid the foundations for a skills development in the three participating cities that has attracted much attention from local authorities, schools, retirement homes and parent groups. The aim of the next phase of the SUDECU project, which is funded by the Community Fund of the Canton of Zurich, is to continue the current activities, but also to involve other peers. To this end, the groups involved are in the process of creating their own short promotional films, which will be screened at a small film festival in May 2025 and, of course, distributed via social media.
During the workshop, all teams were able to create and present their first promotional attempts under expert guidance in an intensive training session. The videos were watched with admiration, but also with a lot of humour, and reflected upon in a friendly and critical manner. The organisers were delighted to note that both the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework for Competences for a Democratic Culture (RFCDC) and the 17 goals of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development had been taken into account and included in the presentations as well as in the planning for the coming months.
