PRISTINA, 10 December – Canada’s Ambassador to Kosovo Daniel Maksymiuk signed five grant agreements today with representatives of local NGOs – FOL Movement; Association for Education and Family Care; ProActive; Open Data Kosovo and the Center for Legal Aid and Regional and Regional Development.

The Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI) will support selected local projects which will result in the establishment of an Anticorruption Open Data Centre; educational sessions to prevent early and forced marriage; training sessions focused on improving human rights; increased access to legal and social assistance for women and children victims of domestic violence and; the development of a mobile application for identifying gender-based violence issues.

“The overwhelming interest in the Canada Fund demonstrates that there is a critical need for additional small grants programming in Kosovo. I see great potential for strengthening our relationship and increasing our engagement with Kosovo. The Canada Fund program is just one of many vehicles that will help us to do this.” commented Maksymiuk.

The CFLI, introduced in Kosovo last year, is a grant-giving program managed and supervised by the Embassy of Canada designed to support small to medium scaled, short-term yet highly impactful local development projects, which are proposed and implemented by local non-governmental organizations. The CFLI will provide over $80,000 in direct and immediate funding for small projects in the areas of: preventing sexual and gender based violence; protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, including vulnerable groups such as sexual minorities; strengthening economic governance and; preventing child, early and forced marriage.

For more information, please contact: rina.dragidella@kcsfoundation.org.