Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs (GOfNGOs), as the Contact Point of the programme Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) presented today the funding opportunities for the non-profit and public sectors through the Union programme Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) via an online event.
After the introductory speech of Helena Beus, Head of the GOfNGOs, Željka Markulin presented the key elements of the CERV programme, its purpose and objectives including 4 thematic units (Union Values, Equality, Rights and Gender Equality, Citizen Involvement and Participation; and Daphne - Combating all Forms of Violence). She also briefly presented the Funding & Tender Opportunities portal which publishes the indivicual calls, how to apply for individual call and currently open calls for project proposals. Željka Markulin reminded that, as the Contact Point of the CERV programme, the GOfNGOs is responsible for informing and educating about the Programme, strengthening its visibility in the Republic of Croatia, as well as providing technical support to the applicants and projects beneficiaries.
The presentation is available
here.
In the second part of the event, a panel discussion CERV programme – investing in EU foundations was held, with the participation of Tatjana Vlašić, deputy Ombudswoman, Snježana Vasiljević, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb and Ivan Novosel, Director of the House of Human Rights, and moderated by Saša Šegrt from the GOfNGOs.
From their perspective the panelists evaluated actual situation in Croatia in areas at the heart of the CERV programme. Tatjana Vlašić pointed out the main areas for which people address the Ombudswoman Office are problems regarding the field of justice, health, labor relations and discrimination. Recently there has been an increase in hate speech, as well as attacks on juounalists and doctors. As a particular problem, she noted the lack of public policies and strategic documents in areas of promoting human rightrs, gender equality and creating and enabling environment for civil society developement.
Ivan Novosel was reffering to the trend of stagnation in the area of human rights in Croatia, as well as the most vulnerable groups facing severe dificulties in achieving social and economic rights, especially in rural areas. He also spoke about the problems of inaccessibility of services available to children and people with disabilities.
Snježana Vasiljević agreed with the assessment on stagnation, even regression in human rights protection. She focused on the problem of discrepancy between laws and their application in practice. Although various directives on gender equality were transferred into Croatian legislation, in practice we often encounter inequality and discrimination, and assessed that this process will continue for at least another ten years.
All panelists emphasized that due to the pandemic and earthquake the vulneragble became even more vulnerable. In this respect as potential areas where the CERV programme could work to improve human rights and anti-discrimination, they stressed the need for targeted and continuous education, capacity building different public bodies, and by transferring good practice from other countries.
The panel concluded with the wishes that the CERV programme would become the driver which would enable the mitigation of the identified problems, namely the realisation of visible positive changes.
You can take a video of the event
here.
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