Thanks to the support received from the 15th round of the Kosovo Women’s Fund, the member organization of the Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN), the Youth Association for Human Rights (YAHR), from November 19-22 held workshops on the new legislature 2021/24 with assembly members of the Municipality of Lipjan.

As part of the initiative “Achieving gender equality in decision-making”, this organization has informed the participants about the importance of advancing the position of women in local institutions.

On the first day of the workshop, the participants were introduced to the initiative and the activities that will be carried out during the workshop as well as the upcoming activities planned for the next six months of implementing this initiative.

Whereas, on the second day of the workshop, strategic planning was discussed regarding the advancement of the position of women in local institutions of the Municipality of Lipjan.

Bekim Krasniqi, Executive Director, YAHR highlighted the importance of the support received from KWN.

“We started by supporting all women candidates for the municipal assembly of the Municipality of Lipjan, in which case we called on citizens to vote more women in these elections. This campaign has resulted in success as today we count five women in the municipal assembly of Lipjan, who were elected without the need for a gender quota “, said Krasniqi.

He further said that this workshop has a special role also because thanks to it the priorities have become objectives.

“There has been a unity of parliamentarians to draft a strategy that will help these priorities be in a document and thus advance the demands and needs that would force the executive to take them into account,” he said. therefore, this workshop was extremely important for us as an organization to coordinate activities and priorities with the assembly members of the Lipjan Municipal Assembly in order to have flexibility and success in our cause. ”

Also, Lumturije Bytyqi-Hasan, assembly member in the Municipality of Lipjan said that this workshop was very productive.

“Thanks to this workshop, for the first time, an internal institutional initiative is starting to regulate the position of women in the institutions of the Municipality of Lipjan. YAHR has always been supportive of initiatives to promote women in society and we will continue to be allies with YAHR to achieve our common goals,” she said.

In the coming months, this organization will conduct numerous activities with institutional representatives to raise awareness of the importance of implementing the Law on Gender Equality and equal participation of women in decision-making positions in the Municipality of Lipjan.

This initiative was supported by the European Union (EU) Office in Kosovo, through KWN’s “Empowering Women in Politics” initiative.