On July 20th, Ambassador Greg Delawie and USAID Mission Director Jim Hope spent a full day in the Štrpce/Shtërpcë municipality, meeting with local officials and visiting several USAID project sites.  The trip included a discussion on youth and women’s advocacy at the local level with representatives from three civil society groups: the Youth Education and Integration Center Štrpce (YEICS), the Local Youth Action Council, and with an informal women’s group.  USAID has partnered with these groups on several projects, including working with the Local Youth Action Council to identify community development priorities in the municipality and with the YEICS to implement a project aimed at establishing ties between communities using art as a shared means for inter-ethnic cooperation.  

The Ambassador and Mission director also visited with a group of women farmers who are cultivating medicinal and aromatic plants.  These women, who come from different ethnic communities, have taken the initiative to form an organization that helps them support each other, maximize production, and reach new markets. Through this collective action, they’re knitting together their communities, creating a livelihood for themselves and their families, and displaying real entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector.  In 2016, USAID’s AGRO program provided these farmers with a grant of €30,000 to purchase plastic tunnel dryers for drying their plants on a daily basis, critically preventing damage to the plants before they reach collection centers.