Series of workshops: “Basic democratic education for women from rural areas” were conducted during the first half of the 2006 in organization of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and Organization of Women from Struga.

The participation of women in the democratic processes in Republic of Macedonia is very low. Even in the cases when they are present, their role is mostly passive and voiceless, which was an incentive to organize eight one-day workshops in the rural areas of Struga with mixed ethnic population.

Each workshop was organized in a different village in the close neighbourhood of Struga. Usually there were between ten and fifteen young women as participants. Brief history of women’s movement for liberation and equal rights was presented on the beginning. This was followed by a discussion on the meaning of March 8th and the ways it should be celebrated in comparison with the current custom of celebration of this day in Macedonia. An interesting change of opinion occurred after this presentation and women stressed the need for a proactive way of marking this significant date of the women’s movement.

The next part of the workshop continued with overview of the political participation of women in the world and comparison with the political participation of women in Macedonia. Discussions were led about the perception of women that are active in the political life in Macedonia, the impression was that those women are very well accepted and admired for their courage in the Albanian community, whereas the opposite was stated in the Macedonian community. Some of the politically active women on these workshops explained that being politically active is by no means an easy task in Macedonia, due to the discrimination not only from their colleagues, but also from women in the community where they live.

The last part of the workshop addressed different political systems and the emphasis was given to the democratic systems in EU. Development of Macedonian democracy was compared to the democracies in EU, and discussions were led in the direction of the need to improve the democratic life in the state through increasing the participation of women in politics. The importance of fair elections and the right to vote freely without the pressure of the family was stressed. Participants showed active interest in the presented topics and were very satisfied with the opportunity to express their concern for the lack of opportunities for women from rural regions overall.