think globally,
act locally

About Us

The organization ”Syri i Vizionit” officially registered as a local NGO in September 2001, started operating as early as 1999 as a Community-Based Organization (CBO) in the city of Pejë/Pec to coordinate the publication and release of a Youth Magazine in Kosovo, with the financial support of USAID. Since its inception, the NGO”Syri i Vizionit” has gained in professionalism through implementation of large spectrum of multi-faced projects, proving itself as a genuine Civil Society actor in Kosovo.

Throughout most recent years, the NGO ”Syri i Vizionit” developed numerous partnerships with a wide range of national and international organizations, municipalities and other stakeholders Kosovo-wide and in the Balkans (USAID, IREX, DRC, CARE international, OSCE, Olof Palme, Swiss Labour Assistance...)

Mission statement & Values:


The NGO “Syri i Vizionit” primarily aims to promote local democracy and citizens’ participation in Kosovo, in Pejë/Pec region in the first place. In its continuous efforts to enforce democratic practices, the NGO “Syri i Vizionit” puts a special emphasis on the promotion of good governance, accountability, transparency and participation in multiple spheres of civic life.

In practice, any project implemented by the NGO “Syri i Vizionit” seeks to establish sustainable linkages between municipal authorities and civil society actors at institutional and/or individual level.

Programmatic objectives:


Since start, the NGO “Syri i Vizionit” has articulated its work around specific objectives:


In line with these objectives, the NGO “Syri i Vizionit” has intervened in diversified sectors of civil society since 1999 and tackled a large variety of topics: media development, minority rights’ promotion, support to return and reintegration of IDPs and refugees, monitoring of municipal institutions, youth networking in the field of peace-building, urban planning, etc.

At organizational level, the NGO “Syri i Vizionit” currently employs in total ten permanent staff, most of them assigned to specific projects. This working team is supported by a core group of forty civil society youth and community activists for specific actions in the field of advocacy, information dissemination and awareness-raising.

At management level, the daily work and strategy of the NGO is led and overseen by a Board of Director consisting of nine members. This Board meets on a regular basis with the active participation of key staff.

As stated above, the NGO”Syri i Vizionit” has a long experience in international development cooperation with a proven and extensive project record. Its funding sources are diversified: during 2006, the NGO”Syri i Vizionit” accessed over 160,000 EUR of direct funding from various international and national donors such as the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), USAID-RTI, One World. Since January 2007, it already secured funding in amount of 139,000 EUR with the support of DRC, Care International and the USAID-funded ATRC-IREX project.
 
Since 2003, the NGO is one of the official partners of One World Web Portal for South Eastern Europe and its assigned focal point for any publication in Albanian language. This site is a unique platform of regional cooperation and information exchange between citizens and civil society organizations over a wide range of issues. It gathers seven active NGOs in the field of media and information under the auspices of a regional foundation established in 2003.

As of 2004, the NGO “Syri i Vizionit” became an active member of the Kosovo Initiative Program (KIP), a non-formal cross-border network of local NGOs established under the auspices of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) in support of the return and reintegration of refugees and IDPs to Kosovo. Within this framework, the NGO”Syri i Vizionit” partnered with Serbian and Montenegrin NGOs and implemented over ten projects for a total budget exceeding 200,000 EUR to date.

The NGO “Syri i Vizionit” plays an active role in the field of youth networking and peace-building at regional level: in the Board of the Kosovo Youth Network for years and is a founding and active member of Pejë/Pec multiethnic youth network since 2002.

The organization takes an active part in other networking initiatives on a project basis such as the ProPeace Platform launched in Kosovo with the participation of local NGOs in 2005, the Coalition for a Clean Parliament, and the Coalition for Cooperation between Civil Society and Government.