Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia. It is the country’s political, cultural, economic, and academic centre.
Skopje was known in the Roman period under the name Scupi. The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC. The city developed rapidly after World War II, but this trend was interrupted in 1963 when it was hit by a disastrous earthquake.
In 1991, it became the capital city of an independent Macedonia. The name of the country is Northern Macedonia since 2019.
The Freja Forum 2010 was held in Skopje, Macedonia, traditionally the second weekend in November and gathered approximately 175 participants from 8 countries.
Organizer was NCWM-UWOM, the Union of Women Organizations in Macedonia.
The share of female participants in Freja Forum is rising for every year. Bosnian-Herzegovina and Serbia have almost the same percentage participants every year. Almost 4 of 5 participants represent the civil sector. However, this differs between the countries. From Serbia 26% of the participants represent the private sector, from Bosnia-Herzegovina the private sector was not represented at Forum this year.
Each year the Forum has a certain subject, besides Equal Opportunities and Democracy, which are headlines every year. This year it was Challenges of mobility.
The program has an established structure, starting with an opening session, an exhibition which represented participation organizations, a cocktail buffet and networking in the first evening, seminars and workshops the second day, an event in the evening and third day a plenary session with a Forum debate, where an Audience Response System is used.
Savka Todorovska, president of MCWM–UWOM, opened the Freja Forum 2010.
Jens Orback, General Secretary of Olof Palme International Center, and Vladimir Todorovic, Mayor of the Center Municipality Skopje also did opening remarks.
Aleksandar Krzalovski, Macedonia, Radmila Bukumiric, Serbia, and Tea Memisevic, Bosnia-Herzegovina also held keynote speeches.
According to the Audience response system, this year named The Freja Barometer, the most important contribution from the Freja Forum is networking contacts (52%), Knowledge gained (20%) and Inspiration & Hope (22%).
65% of the participants from Serbia and 62% of them from Croatia meant that the networking between meetings were most useful, but just 9% of the Swedish participants.
94% of the Serbian and 92% of the Bosnia-Herzegovina participants have experiences of concrete actions inspired by the Freja Forum.
In the evaluation a number of participants marked out that new countries should be involved in the Forum – Montenegro, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania are mentioned.