A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Additional Resources

General resources and links on civil society in Kosovo before, during and after the 1999 war, and related issues as they appeared in Volumes 8 and 10 of On the Record.

UN Mission in Kosovo
Website for the UN Mission in Kosovo. Links to recent reports, maps and declarations. Read UNMIK reports to the UN Security Council.

KFOR website
Website for the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. Links to maps, recent reports and press and information for the operation.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees
There are pages on the UNHCR website dedicated to their work with refugees in Kosovo. Includes reports on minorities, maps and program reviews.

Beograd.com
A news site about Yugoslavia, with live news reports, comment and analysis; and, it serves as a portal, providing links to other media, non-profit and business sites in or about Yugoslavia. Articles in Serbian and English.

Albanian.com
A site dedicated to information about the Albanians and the lands where they live: Albania, Kosova, Macedonia, Montenegro and others. Site contains links to newspapers in English, Albanian and Serbian.

International Crisis Group (ICG)
The International Crisis Group (ICG) is a private, multinational organisation committed to strengthening the capacity of the international community to anticipate, understand and act to prevent and contain conflict. Website contains numerous reports

Relief Web
Contains information about the work of the humanitarian community in Kosovo including maps, full text of reports and evaluations. See section on Southeastern Europe (Kosovo).

Disability links

Handicap International
Handicap International has provided support and rehabilitation to thousands of mine victims throughout the 1990s. It was the earliest international group to support Handikos in Kosovo. Handicap International is headquartered in France. Contact Sylvie Brigot (Paris), Anne Capelle (Brussels).

Center for Self Reliance
Site under construction. The Center was started by Faruk Sabanovic, who was paralyzed by a sniper bullet in Sarajevo in 1995. Email CSR.

The Committee for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange
CIRRIE is based at the University of Buffalo is engaged in three projects, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education. One involves preparing a database of rehabilitation research, culled from exiting databases. Contact project director John Stone. CIRRIE also provides travel grants that facilitate international contacts between rehabilitation research experts. CIRRIE also publishes cultural information that can be used by therapists in treating immigrants to the United States. Visit the CIRRIE web site for information, and also to log into 'Rehab Talk!' a new interactive forum that allows researchers to share information. The website has links to scores of related organizations.

Disabilitynet
Disabilitynet (Nottingham, UK) is a leading Internet-based disability information and news service. It provides a clearing-house for employment, a bulletin board for messages, an opportunity to meet 'penpals,' and a virtual shopping center where disabled people can order products. The site even features a 'Soap Box' where disabled people can -- in the words of the site -- 'have a good moan.' More seriously they can also register discrimination complaints.

Disability Radio Worldwide
DRW transmits a 30-minute radio program every week on the experience of disabled people to over 100 countries, from Costa Rica, via Radio for Peace International on short wave frequencies 6975, 15050, and 21460: Mondays at 19:00 UTC, Fridays at 17:00 UTC, and Saturdays at 22:00 UTC. Plans are also under way for Internet broadcasting. For information and cassettes of past programs, contact Disability Radio Worldwide, Colorado, US.

European Network of Independent Living
The European Network started after 80 persons with extensive disabilities attended a 1989 meeting at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The organization seeks to promote 'the opportunities of persons with disabilities to gain more personal and political power, self-determination, full participation, and equality through information, training materials, consultancy and technical assistance.' Also supports self-help groups in developing countries. Consult the web site for links, and free online services, ranging from a library to a holiday home exchange.

World Institute on Disability
Based in Oakland, California, WID advocates to ensure that disabled people have equal access and breaks down barriers to independent living by disabled people. Founded 16 years ago, WID has a staff of 30, over half of whom have some form of disability. One of its recent successes was passage of the Work Incentive Improvement Act (US), which seeks to open up work opportunities for the disabled. WID also runs an international program, which promotes links between the United States and other countries. Since 1992, WID has worked with the All-Russian Society of the Disabled (ARSD), helping to strengthen the capacity of ARSD's network and increase the profitability of 1,500 business that are owned by ARSD. Contact Kathy Martinez.

There are very few groups working specifically on behalf of the Roma, Ashkali or Egyptians in Kosovo. A growing number of advocacy organizations outside Kosovo expressed concern at the plight of Kosovo's Roma in the months following the war. Among the more notable were the following:

Kosova Young Ecologists
The Young ecologists were one of the first environmental lobby groups to emerge after the war. The Young Ecologists also have a website which was designed by 15 year old Andrew Siegel from St. Albans School Washington DC. Andrew runs his own web design company. Contact them.

Regional Environment Center
The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) is a not-for-profit organization with the mission to assist in solving environmental problems in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).  Email the Kosovo field office.

Balkan Sunflowers
This is a group of volunteers that began working in Croatia during the mid 1990s, during the war. Balkan Sunflowers currently run projects in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, where they are working to clean up the towns of Peja and Djakova with other NGOs. Email them.

Sacred Earth Network
The Network helps environment groups in the fourteen republics of Northern Eurasia to use information technology in their work.

International Rivers Network
IRN is an environmental group based in Berkeley, California, which campaigns on behalf of people affected by dams, and to protect the world's natural waterways. Each year, IRN organises a poetry and art competition for schoolchildren around the theme of watersheds. In April 2000, 8 national (US) winners, and one international winner won a trip to Washington DC. For more information, contact Pam and Shannon at IRN.

Center for Environmental Citizenship
The Center works with students on college campuses, mobilizing around environment campaigns and help student environment groups to network.

Kids for a Clean Environment
The mission of Kids for A Clean Environment is to provide information on environmental issues to children, to encourge and facilitate youth's involvement with effective environmental action and to recognize those efforts which result in the improvement of nature.

Kids for Saving Earth
Kids for Saving Earth Worldwide with a network of over 4,500 schools and environmentally concerned kids and adults. The mission of KSE is to educate, inspire, and empower children to protect the Earth's environment. KSE Worldwide provides action-oriented educational materials to kids, families, groups, classrooms and schools.

Links to resources related to Information, Technology and local media in Kosovo

NYTimes article on IPKO

WHAT did it take to bring the Internet to a continent's most devastated spot? Youth, audacity, a scavenger and a deal maker. And clamoring customers ready to pay.

The idea of creating an Internet service provider that would put Kosovo in touch with the rest of the world through e-mail started with two young Americans who teamed up with Mr. Ismaili to form IPKO. Teresa Crawford was a 25-year-old graduate student at Syracuse University and a founder of the Advocacy Project, which uses the Internet to advance human rights. While in the region, she had researched setting up Internet service at Pristina University, but that turned out to be impractical.

IPKO
The first not-for-profit Internet service provider established in post-war Kosova. Currently over 100 organizations are connected to the Internet via the IPKO link.

Albanews and Justicewatch
For information about the use of the internet in the war, consult the International Justice Watch Discussion List archives and the Albanews archives.

Institute for War and Peace Reporting
IWPR supports media development through collaborative journalistic projects and other forms of practical assistance. Founded in 1991, it has pioneered cross-community editorial projects - linking contributors from different regions and diverse communities

Minority sources

Multiethnic Children and Youth Peace Centers, Mitrovice
The MCYPC project is conducted by a local Kosovar non-governmental youth organization (NGYO) of the same name - Multiethnic Children And Youth Peace Centers (MCYPC) By opening forums for education, expression and creativity in multiethnic groups of children and youth of Mitrovice, this program will help overcome differences and tension based on ethnicity and will open channels for creative dialog and cooperation to all communities of Mitrovice.

Project on Ethnic Relations
Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the Project has developed extensive expertise on the Roma as part of its work to prevent ethnic conflict.

European Roma Rights Center
The Council is an international public interest law organisation which monitors the human rights situation of Roma and provides legal defence in cases of human rights abuse. The ERRC is governed by an international board of directors. Romani organisations and Romani individuals throughout Europe contribute time, money and expertise to the ERRC.

Council of Europe
The Council is the main international institution working on behalf of Europe's 8 to 10 million Roma. Consult the Council web page for reports and initiatives.

OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities
In 1999, the OSCE created the post of an advisor on Roma at the OSCE office for human rights in Warsaw. Max Van der Stoel, the OSCE's High Commissioner for National Minorities monitors the situation of minorities in the OSCE region. For information, contact John Packer.

Romany National Congress
The Congress campaigns for the rights of Roma, with particular emphasis on their civil and political rights. Special section on Roma in Kosovo.

Prisoners and War crimes

Resources and links on War Crimes and Kosovar Prisoners in Serbia and related issues as they appeared in Volume 10 of On the Record.

Association of Political Prisoners
The Kosova-based Association of Political Prisoners monitors the situation of Kosovar prisoners detained in Serb prisons since the end of the war in June 1999. The web page is hosted by the Kosova Humanitarian Aid Organization.

International Committee of the Red Cross
The ICRC has a mandate to trace missing persons including some 6,000 Kosovars reported missing from the war

Free Albin Kurti
A website dedicated to Albin Kurti, a Kosovar Albanian student leader imprisoned in Serbia.

International Criminal Tribunal - Yugoslavia
The ICTY was established in May 1993, with headquarters in the Hague. It has an open-ended mandate to indict those responsible for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, including Kosovo.

Domovina Net
Web broadcasts of trials of war criminals in the Hague. Web broadcasts of radio programs from the Balkans. Links to local television broadcasts. Web pages dedicated to Balkan culture, history and human rights campaigns.

Alice Mead
Alice Mead is an author of children's books and tireless campaigner for human rights in Kosovo.

Wolfgang Plarre
Wolfgang Plarre, from Germany, served as unofficial focal point for those working for the release of the Kosovar hostages. Email him. He distributes a regular email update on developments on the prisoners.

Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
LCHR runs a lawyer-to-lawyer network and encourages lawyers to lobby on behalf of detained or harassed lawyer. Email them. 

Coalition for International Justice
Based in Washington, DC, and the Hague, the CIJ monitors the work of the international criminal tribunal and keeps up-to-date information on arrests and indictments.

CEELI
The American Bar Association's Central and East Europe Law Initiative (CEELI) has worked to record war crimes committed in Kosovo and build the legal capacity of Kosovar human rights groups.

Amnesty International
Amnesty International has published many reports on Kosovo, detention and war crimes. AI's October 1999 report, 'Broken Circle,' on the missing and detained in Kosovo is particularly informative.

Women's Issues

Links and resources related to womens' issues and Kosovo. Includes contact information for many local women's groups working in Kosovo.

The Autonomous Women's Center Against Sexual Violence
Working from Belgrade, the Women's Center maintained a staunch independence from the Milosevic regime during the 1990s and tried to represent women in Kosovo and Serbia alike. Site contains a directory of women's groups in the region.

Kvinna til Kvinna
Kvinna till Kvinna (Women to Women) is a Swedish foundation which supports women who have been afflicted by war and conflict throughout the western Balkans. Supports several of the groups profiled in OTR, including Motrat Qiriazi.

UNIFEM
UNIFEM, the UN's fund for Women, has three main areas of work in Kosovo. First, engendering government, democracy and leadership through legislative and policy issues, data collection and training (with OSCE). Second, to focus on women's human rights.

Urgent Action Fund
Urgent Action Fund co-sponsored a gender Audit of Reconstruction Programs in South Eastern Europe with the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. Email them.