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Participation in Public Life Starts with Voting in Election |
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Raising citizens awarness on the importance of their participation and motivating them to turn out on Election day is the main achiviement of the project “Participation in public life starts with voting in election” implemented by NGO “Me Dorë në zemër” from Mitrovica.
Raising citizens awarness on the importance of their participation and motivating them to turn out on Election day is the main achiviement of the project “Participation in public life starts with voting in election”. The elections of November 17, 2007 present a very important event for the ongoing democratic processes in Kosovo. This importance is primarily based in two main reasons: firstly, is the period when the negotiations for Kosovo status settlement and secondly, these elections present another test for Kosovar society in the efforts of laying the grounds of democracy. Having three different elections at the same time is one of the most challenging aspect of these elections. Adding the previous experience, in particular with regard to citizen participation in the previous elections, leads to an easy conclusion that the major difficulty in the overall process presents the motivation of citizens to vote. In relation to the above mentioned reasons, Mitrovica should be seen as very specific situation as the de-motivation of the citizens to participate in public life is higher than anywhere in Kosovo. The core activity of the project is the outreach campaign, mainly in rural areas where is most needed. Also, as a very important activity is supporting the political parties in identifyning the citizens expectations and needs which helps them ground their political programs. And the third activity is to foster the confidence of civil society actors in addressing issues of public interest.
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