Grantees in the Spotlight

Grantees in the spotlight

civil society

The future depends on all of us: collective action and lessons from Poland

A governmental attempt to restrict women’s rights in 2020, a proposed tax reform in 2021 that can shrink the space for independent media, and governmental efforts to curtail the judiciary’s independence marked an eventful period for civil society organisations in Poland. Amidst all developments, Polish civil society has learnt that united actions have more impact than individual attempts to counter the worrying trends.

15/07/2021

independent journalism

PressOne inspires their readers through reporting about solutions, not only problems

For Civitates’ partners from PressOne, an independent journalist organisation based in Romania, public-interest journalism is “a powerful way to make people understand the reality that surrounds them and a powerful tool of change” as Adrian Mihaltianu, PressOne’s managing director, shared.

20/05/2021

digital public sphere

Enjoying the internet while staying safe online

BIRN, together with SHARE foundation, has been monitoring how digital rights violations in Central and South-Eastern Europe are impacting democracy and human rights even before the pandemic changed people’s lives. With the pandemic, however, they saw a tremendous growth of rights violations linked to Covid-19.

30/03/2021

civil society

CSOs in France unite to react to controversial bill

By working together, members of the coalition led by VoxPublic unite strengths and expertise to promote and defend the rights of civil society actors and to provide response strategies to the growing repression experienced by associations.

04/03/2021

Further Stories

Enjoying the internet while staying safe online

30/03/2021

CSOs in France unite to react to controversial bill

04/03/2021

Keeping a media light on: lessons from Hungary

09/02/2021

Under Hungary’s present government, many independent or critical voices in the media have been silenced. Yet journalists have built new business models to go on holding the powerful to account. The founders of investigative news site Direkt36 see leaders elsewhere emulating Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and want to share what they’ve learned.

Next level election observation with DRI’s toolkit on social media monitoring

15/12/2020

Democracy Reporting International (DRI) recently launched a user-friendly concept for a web-based toolkit to monitor social media during elections. As the phenomenon of social media influencing the political arena is something known only for about 5 years, little knowledge existed about the impact on democracy.

Regional solidarity could ease the political tension in Hungary

29/10/2020

The government campaign against civil organisations in the last few years has caused major damage to the sector in Hungary. The local initiatives in cities and towns across the country have withdrawn and are focusing on rather apolitical activities. Stigmatised CSO’s, especially in pro-governmental cities are isolated from public or civic co-operations.