APIS Institute

National Network
Slovenia
Address

Na stolbi 3
1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia

Telephone
0038631338616
E-Mail
apis@zavodapis.si
E-Mail (2)
romana@zavodapis.si
E-Mail (3)
apis.institute@gmail.com
Organisation Type
Non-Governmental Organization
Year of Establishment
2012
Fields of Activity
  1. Arts
  2. Democracy and community development
  3. Gender
  4. Human rights
  5. Media
  6. Youth and education
General Information
Zavod APIS/Institute APIS was established in 2012 as socially engaged institute with a vision to promote social inclusion, human rights, intercultural dialogue and empowerment of those most vulnerable and marginalized. We are an NGO based in the capital of Slovenia. The organization was founded by 3 founding members and is a small scale organization with budget of 50.000 per year. Even if the budget we operate with is quite small, we never the less believe to have a strong impact on the community, the volunteers, the migrants and refugees we work with, the international youth we engage in our activities.  Only in 2016 we implemented 3 international mobilities under Erasmus+ programme that included over 20 international partner organizations and over 10 national organizations. APIS has multiple volunteers and collaborators. In the last years it has established strong partnerships with international organizations inside European and Mediteranean region. Sources of funding: European projects, especially Erasmus+; national ministries; municipality where we are based. We also were a partner in Anna Lindth funded project in collaboration with jordanian organization.   Modalities of action: trainings, exchanges, youth work, seminars, participatory and community engagements, media, video and audio production  
Mission and Objectives

Primarily we focus our work on migrants, refugees and marginalized youth. We implement workshops and educational activities on a international, national and local level.
As tools of empowerment of vulnerable groups we are mainly using video, photography, multi/trans media and new technologies. The goals we are pursuing are knowledge transference and giving voice to the socially excluded or marginalized. We use accessible and inclusive methodologies as participatory video, documentary video making, documentary photography, mobile video filmmaking…
Next to educational activities we have created and co-produced many documentaries with eduactional value and produced photo and transmedia exhibitions, always socially engaged with the aim to inform the public and promote social inclusion. We also work with internationally acclaimed artists to highlight the overlooked themes.
We are making further steps and plan to incorporate new, but accessible technologies into our creative and socially responsible work even deeper. We would also like to share the knowledge we have gained and develop it further in terms of citizens' jurnalism, participatory community development, social entrepreneurship and raising employability.

Main Projects / Activities

We connect social engagement, promote social inclusion and link it with culture and intercultural dialogue. These are few of our activities:
 
2016:
1) we implemented 1 Erasmus + training for trainers for 55 people from 15 countries: one in Slovenia, one in Belgrade; theme: socially engaged digital storytelling
2) we coordinated and organized 1 youth exchange in Slovenia, 6 countries, 30 participants
3) we exhibited our socially engaged exhibitions in 7 different locations; also in National Assembly and Slovene Academy of Science and Arts
4) we organized euromediteranean photo marathon in Ljubljana that also took place in Beirut, Algiers, Amman, Palermo, Marseille, Neaples (coordinator was FRAME from Beirut)
5) we got 5 awards for short films we produced in the frame of our workshops and our films were screened at 5 film festivals in 2016
6) we produced 13 short documentaries, 10 financed by Erasmus+ programme and 3 financed by Berlin based foundation EVZ - Stiftung "Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft" / Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future". We also produced 2 videos for Salto Youth South Eastern Europe and 5 videos for MOVIT, Slovene National Youth Agency for Erasmus + programmes
Few earlier projects:
Anna Lindh Foundation supported project MIGRATION and SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT. We were partner organization, the coordinator was Slovenska filantropija, another partner organization was Jordan based WE Center
Last Witnesses - this is a photo exhibition and a multimedia project about victims of italian fascist camps. The exhibition was more than 10 times exhibited in Slovenia. It was also presented in Neuengamme, Germany (http://berlin.embassy.si/fileadmin/user_upload/dkp_21_vbn/PDF_Files/Bros...)
 
Equality in Focus: migrant and Roma women created photo stories and short films:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8HPfSEf6Pz7YUJySklJRk96dUE/view?ts=56b...
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL6zd6SqsGcPdLgkd1P6HOWScfIZ7EDcy
 
 
 

How can you contribute to the Network in your country?

Since we are a young organization, we are still developing our skills but we already have good practice (non formal education for social inclusion, digital media as tools of promoting intercultural respect, youth work that focuses on vulnerable groups etc.) to share. We would like to further assist in bringing people together from across the Mediterranean in our activities and in our future projects. 
 
As we implement our activities in next years we believe we will be able to further contribute to improve mutual respect between cultures and to support civil society, which is the aim of Anna Lindh Foundation.

Why do you want to join the ALF Network?

Because we already implement activities that link culture and social engagement, promote social inclusion and respect between cultures. This is also one of our primary programme priorities in our Institute. We recognize this values and actions that promote the above as essential for the present and the future of the Euromediteranean region.
We see the ALF network as a supportive space to create stronger partnerships and implement the common goals mentioned above.

Contact (1) Full Name
Romana Zajec
Job Title
Programme Director
Head of the organisation
Nataša Kotar