Environmental, youth and women's groups in Kosova learn how to use the Internet strategically

PRISTINA, Kosova -- BlueLink and StrawberryNet, Bulgarian and Romanian APC members, together with the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) Field Office Kosova, held a second workshop on electronic networking for environmental and other nongovernmental groups in Kosova*. Participants from over twenty different organisations - including representatives from four Serbian-speaking areas - gained better understanding of how to use the Internet as a communication tool and received training in how to exchange and communicate information effectively.

Connectivity is the primary obstacle to working online in Kosova - especially for people who live in small, remote villages. However, according to trainers Milena Georgieva from BlueLink and Mihaly Bako from StrawberryNet, about four out of every five of the participants now use email and access the Internet almost daily.

This workshop built on skills learned in an earlier workshop that BlueLink facilitated in January 2002. At that time, participants from 13 nonprofit ecology organisations learned the fundamentals of networking online and the methods and benefits of using the Internet for environmental campaigning. BlueLink and StrawberryNet both function primarily as providers of Internet communications services to ecology groups in their countries, so they were ideal leaders for this workshop. Enthusiasm was so great among the environmental NGOs that, by the end of the workshop, they resolved to create their own electronic network, and they initiated a working group to develop SharriNet (named after a mountain in Albania), a network to meet the information needs of Kosovar environmental NGOs.

SharriNet representatives found this second workshop particularly useful in helping them to clarify user needs and define content for their information website. A session on writing for the web at the workshop provided the first articles for SharriNet's website and were gratefully received by SharriNet representative, Guri Shkodra. The SharriNet site, which is still under development, will include news on hot environmental topics, environmental campaigns and alerts, significant events and other information that will also be circulated in an electronic newsletter.

"The workshop was held in a friendly and warm atmosphere," said Milena Georgieva from BlueLink. "There were four NGO participants from the Serbian-speaking part of Mitrovica, Kosova, which everyone present considered a very important step in the development of networking in Kosova as a whole."

Learn more about environmental networking in the Balkans (April 2002): http://www.apc.org/english/news/fulltext.shtml?sh_itm=6973745a3a587a17b96cb70d20fcf2c9

and read "Electronic Networking begins in a War-Torn Province; BlueLink Builds Bridges in Kosova" (March 2002): http://www.apc.org/english/news/fulltext.shtml?sh_itm=0ff83a1ba5e8d057c058dabe030349d1

* Known internationally as Kosovo when it was part of Yugoslavia, the now independent Kosovo/a (as it is sometimes written) is known among Albanian-speaking people as Kosova.

Originator: ---
Date: 12/12/2002
Location: PRISTINA, Kosova
Contact:
Category: Training and ICTs
Source: BlueLink