Kolektiv Z is a young women-led collective for climate and social justice based in North Macedonia, dedicated to building people power for intersectional transformative actions to improve the wellbeing of our communities and the planet.
Our work lies at the intersection of climate and social justice, building collective visions and pathways toward a socially-just and environmentally-sound future, done through organizing and campaigning alongside frontline communities.
As part of the Young Friends of the Earth Europe network of young people and youth groups all across Europe we have been strengthening our work with other youth and social justice groups to build a collective response to the environmental, economic, structural and political struggles we face.
And through the SYSTEM:RESET project we are deeply committed to facilitating the creation of a national and Balkan Green Deal, as a pathway to reaching a just and sustainable society we collectively envisage.
And how do we do this?
Balkan Regional Forum
Last summer we organized the Balkan Regional Forum where together with activists, organisations, individuals, workers, communities, groups from all over the Balkans we created two documents:
1. Balkan Green & Just Recovery Principles
The Balkan Green Deal Coalition developed the Balkan Green and Just Recovery Plan that put people and the planet first and set out radical demands for building back better from the interlinked crises we are facing. Read it here.
2. Contours Of Balkan Green Deal
The Balkan Green Deal consists of collectively-created visions for a socially-just and environmentally-sound future with concrete steps that need to be taken to make that future a reality. This includes bold and specific policy recommendations based on principles of justice and equity for all, and demands for policymakers to not only do what is politically possible, but what is desperately needed. Read it here.
Coalition of the future
Coalition of the future was born at the beginning of 2020 when together with like-minded people we decided it was about time to build a social movement that will lay down the foundations and the initial work of system transformation in our country.
Soon, it started to grow and in a blink of an eye the Coalition of the future is now strategizing on plans and ways of working for the creation of a national Green Deal, see the draft document (in Macedonian) here.
The groups and areas of work in the coalition are diverse and include activists, individuals, organizations with different backgrounds, expertise and knowledge of all kinds.
From managing social resources to sovereignty in agriculture and food distribution, from just transition in the energy system to education and activism through art, working on the alternative models of economy together with (de)funding the financial system in the country, we built a platform which aims to build a vision for a truly just and inclusive future, as well as a roadmap on how to achieve that vision.
Green Voice (Zelen Glas)
With the SYSTEM:RESET project we created the digital participatory platform that acts as a place where everyone can share the challenges they face in their communities, and contribute ideas for solutions and be part of decision-making processes.
By creating this virtual space, we want to gather inputs from various groups that will contribute to the national Green Deal. The platform includes introductions to the Green Deal, Coalition of the Future and all activities connected to it. The inputs are gathered through the collective visioning form.
View the platform here (in Macedonian)
Collective Visioning Form
On the digital participatory platform – the Coalition of the Future, through a process of collective visioning, gathers the visions of the citizens from the country for their ideal place to live and act, and upon them builds the national Green Deal.
The final vision-based policies will be communicated to all relevant national governmental and non-governmental institutions, decision-making bodies and Parliament, submitted to the European Commission, MEPs and EU bodies working on the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans.
See the collective visioning form here (in Macedonian)
To support all our work and spread to as many as possible hence building a strong community that will support the social movement for system transformation, we have been using our social media platforms.
We have several online campaigns such as Meet the coordinators of the Coalition of the future, Learn about the thematic areas of the national Green deal, the campaigns against the gasification of our country, but our most recent one and our so-far champion is the TikTok campaign for youth mobilization to join the system transformation social movement. Watch the video that has over 500k views here.