Mobile Advocacy Schools- ISC Effort Towards Sustainable Civil Society Regional Development

"ISC is the only international organization that provides trainings for smaller, local NGOs. This is huge contribution to sustainable regional development of civic sector in Serbia. ISC trainings are especially useful for project proposals writing and understanding of Municipal budgets and their visibility. Just after training of this kind, my organization would be able to develop concrete and effective plan of activities. I hope that ISC will keep organizing excellent trainings, bringing highly experienced advocacy consultants, as they have done, so far" said Selami Bektashi of the Green World, Presevo based CSO, who was one of hundred local civic leaders who participated in ISC Mobile Advocacy Schools.

Mobile Advocacy Schools (MAS) project is designed and tested by ISC Serbia in 2008. This training concept serves to strengthen citizen capacity in local communities around Serbia to plan for and implement effective advocacy campaigns on issues of critical importance to Serbia's continued democratic development. The key purpose of MAS trainings is to provide opportunities to CSOs across the country that often do not have the resources or time to travel to Belgrade, where the majority of training opportunities are held. MAS trainings enable greater access to ISC's capacity-building expertise for leading local and regional citizens' associations in ethnically mixed and economically underdeveloped communities. As such, MAS trainings are not limited to CSAI partners: Any CSO can participate in the training, thereby underscoring the importance CSAI places in developing the long term capacity and sustainability of the entire sector. ISC's hands-on curriculum is in addition designed to foster increased citizen participation and develop skill sets needed for successful proposal writing.

To date, ISC has organized 10 Mobile Advocacy Schools in Novi Pazar, Bujanovac, Novi Sad, Nis, Zajecar and Zlatibor. MAS trainings bring together more than seventy CSOs from Vojvodina, Sandzak, Timok Krajina, Zlatibor county, Presevo, Medvedja, Bujanovac, Nis and Sumadija regions. The response to these trainings is overwhelmingly positive, including from sectors not previously engaged such as older citizens. Media reports on ISC MAS have also been extremely positive and contributed to increasing the overall visibility of the CSAI project. Additionally, two organizations have successfully passed CSAI competitive RFA process while one of them received Advocacy in Practice (AP) grant in 2010.