On 9 June in Lipjan, Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN) member organization, Lipjan Youth Center (LYC), distributed flyers to business owners and employees to raise awareness on family-friendly policies in the workplace, as per the EU Work-Life Balance Directive.

The volunteers distributed posters and placed them in the visible places of the business premises.

Valmire Marevci, Coordinator, LYC, says that some businesses in Lipjan offer flexible working hours for their employees as well as childcare site in the workplace.

Marevci says that “the government should apply the Directive because it improves the country’s economy and it contributes to the equal participation of women and men in the labour force.”

Isamete Krasniqi, who owns a tailoring business, welcomes the campaign to promote the EU Directive on Work-Life Balance. She said that as a businesswoman she understands the workers’ needs by allowing them to bring their children to the workplace and by offering them days off when they have to take care of family members- what is known as the carers leave by the EU Directive.

This is not the first activity that LYC conducts regarding the KWN’s awareness campaign on gender responsive family policies.

On 20 May, the organization held an information session with business representatives in Lipjan to inform them in more detail about family-friendly policies in the workplace.

The initiative “Promoting Family Friendly Policies at the Local Level” was supported by the United Nations Population Fund in Kosovo (UNFPA) via KWN’s initiative “Expanding Choices: Gender-Responsive Family Policies for the Private Sector in the Western Balkans and Moldova,” financed by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation.

In addition to LYC, three other organizations have benefited from UNFPA, through the 15th round of the Kosovo Women’s Fund. You can read more here.