The Association for Human Rights and Active Citizenship PaRiter is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization from Rijeka that advocates for human rights, a culture of nonviolence, tolerance, minority rights and gender equality. We achieve this by connecting informal education, research and activism. Our vision is an equal society that recognizes and respects different needs and rights of all people. You can read more on our goals, activities and values here.
Due to the city’s unfortunate policies on renting and subletting business spaces, which have been particularly cold towards NGOs, PaRiter’s activities at Janeza Trdine 7, the office space that we shared for years with our sister organization LORI, ended in March. Our new home is located at the address Blaža Polića 2, where we moved on April 1st with the help of some dear people who support us however they can to make our association what it is today and help realise what it will one day become. These new 122 square meters have potential, but they don’t have floors. There is light, but the windows are dysfunctional. There are shelves, but insufficient to open our feminist library. The space has a soul but it needs help to fully develop – and that is the part where you come in!
We are replanting PaRiter – spring time is work time, but also the time for new beginnings for PaRiter. Opening up new horizons to be conquered together, new battles to be lead and won. In seven years we have done so much and we plan to do much more in the coming period, in our new office space!
PaRiter was founded in 2014. We began by volunteering and now there are four of us employed. We collaborate with approximately ten external associates and a wide range of associations and initiatives to solve problems that affect a large number of our fellow citizens.
In these seven wonderful years we have implemented a wide range of notable projects that have been based on the needs of the community, both local and wider. We have organized 27 human libraries which have a direct effect on reducing prejudice in hundreds of our fellow citizens of all ages. We have (co)organized dozens of protests where we advocated for curricular reform, prevention of gender-based violence, pointed out structural problems, and celebrated March 8th. We conducted a study on comprehensive sexual education and also organized workshops in high schools on the same topic. We researched harassment in the employment process and in workplaces, and conducted a comprehensive research on menstrual poverty. We produced publications on violence prevention, comprehensive sexual education, youth, reproductive justice and even created a university textbook for the course “Gender, sexuality and identities – from oppression to equality”! When talking about this course we can’t not mention the fact that we run mentor programs for its students, as well as those of other courses, thereby teaching the students about NGO work, activism and feminist theory. We also have to mention our fanzine, or more accurately, our activist cookbook “Glas Tonzila”, where we summarize our experiences with activist action in public as well as with organizing public events.
Everything we did and continue doing has been accomplished in cooperation with our partners from various organizations and initiatives. Feminism is not only one woman! We continue to reaffirm this through our radio show “Radioactive” – a show on gender equality and fierce women which we produce and air on Radio Korzo since 2017. We’ve also started another radio show “Invisibles” on Radio Roža.
Between designing, organizing and implementing projects and activities, we are also active on social networks and the web: from the very beginning we have maintained the webpage znajznanje.org, the first Croatian website to contain relevant and scientifically based information on pregnancy termination. Hopacupa.org is another site under our online umbrella and it deals mostly with health education and contraception while providing relevant and accurate information for young people in an innovative way. Hood.hr is a site we started in collaboration with LORI and SOS Rijeka – its goal is to better connect potential students with an elective course on the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka based on service-learning. Furthermore, we can’t forget our “youngest” website which we created in collaboration with a brilliant crew that recognized the importance of continuing our great campaign #womeninpublicspaces – bitna.si. Bitna.si is a unique site which has a whole slew of stories on violence, both in public and private spaces, so that people who have experienced violence themselves are able to share their experiences, read other people’s stories and realize they are not alone and not guilty.
Apart from different programs and projects, we’ve developed numerous advocacy campaigns – we’ve continuously advocated for abortion rights, the prevention of gender-based violence, and the implementation of comprehensive sexual education in the Croatian formal education system – with news of some of our activities reaching the United Nations and the European Union.
Why crowdfunding?
At our new address, we can create a safe space for activists, young people, women, and members of different groups that are discriminated against; we can open up our library; we can organize workshops, screenings, discussions, and human libraries; and we can plan new projects, collaborations and actions. However, all of this is currently not possible because the place is, to put it mildly, dilapidated. We have to fix the walls, ceilings and floors so that space could be physically, not just figuratively, safe. We have to buy shelves so that all this knowledge from the past seven years could find its place. We have to furnish the space so that we could, for the next 10 years at least, continue to create, design and open up new possibilities for change in all of our lives. Decorating this space would not only help PaRiter to develop, but enable other sister, informal groups and associations to organize their own activities, training sessions, and workshops in our premises for free if they want to. The small space in which we previously were, as comfortable as it was for us, did not allow for our organization to grow in its full capacity. Due to this, we ask you to donate an amount of your choice. You can donate via this link – the crowdfunding platform is in Croatian and if you’re looking where to chip in, click on the “Doniraj i ti” – first red button to the right! Our goal is 9664 USD, and we are heading there slowly but consistently. But money is not all we need to adapt our new space – if you have the knowledge and the skills for any construction work, let us know at . You can use the same address if you want to donate a bag or two of plaster, some paint, laminate flooring etc of if you have some questions.
Current condition of our space:
