Considering the pandemic and the lack of face-to-face communication in 2021, the biggest challenge in 2022 was to organise the campaign to raise awareness of the Living-Democarcy.com website in Northern Macedonia again in direct contact with users. Despite the immense difficulties, different types of events were organised, namely trainings, conferences and direct teaching in schools. The promotion and information campaign for the website was so very successfully carried out by our two team members from Northern Macedonia, Natalija Aceska (consultant in the Office for the Development of Education) and Ivanka Mijikj (consultant in the Office for the Development of Education). They report that visiting classes in several urban and rural primary schools was one of the biggest challenges. Different classes and subjects were visited (civic education, mathematics and geography in grades 8 and 9, and one class at grade 4. The teachers found that living-democarcy.com is a resource for learning democratic culture and values, which promotes integrated education among primary school students of different ethnicities. For Northern Macedonia, this means specifically: Macedonian, Albanian and Bosnian. Each pupil browsed the website in their mother tongue. In this way, the pupils were familiarised with the website and its materials during the lessons. The teacher emphasised that they should be used in the learning process as well as in extracurricular activities.
Lirija Primary School in Zhitoshe, Krste Petkov Misirkov Primary School in Bistrica and St. Kliment Ohridski Primary School in Prilep participated in the campaign in May and/or December 2022. About 120 pupils were involved. They have found living-democracy.com a very interesting and useful source of materials and activities to strengthen their democratic culture and democratic skills.
