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Description
Students'' unions have been among the main structures of civil society for the last 30 years, fighting for an open society, participatory democracy, transparency and integrity at all levels. Although students'' unions have obtained through advocacy campaigns or protests the right to participate in decision-making processes at university and local level (according to the National Education Law or the Youth Law) in fact, over 80% of our network of 111 students'' unions that are currently members of ANOSR do not acquire enough capacity to effectively exercise advocacy and monitor activities corresponding to the rights obtained.
According to our internal studies, over 2/3 of unions possess incomes below 2,500 euros per year, and the involvement of students in unions decreased due to the pandemic context, the unions being fragile structures, influenced directly by the dynamics of the members. The human resources issues and organizational capacity have been also highlighted by a diagnosis made by an external expert of FDSC.
The project will give support to 80 student unions to develop the necessary tools to monitor public institutions and get involved in local public policies, by drawing 80 organizational diagnoses, learning activities, developing support materials, conducting advocacy campaigns, submitting 240 applications based on Law 544/2001, assistance in the elaboration of 80 strategies for increasing the impact of student organizations in the watchdog activity and involvement in the decision-making process at the local and university level.
At national level, the project will support National Alliance of Students Organisations in Romania (ANOSR) to develop public policies in three major areas of intervention that represent a priority, according to the needs of ANOSR members.