Maja Stojanović

Executive Director

Maja Stojanovic is a long-time activist for protection of human rights, and she is a member of Civic Initiatives since October, 2010. Before she became Executive Director in January 2014, she had worked for Civic Initiatives as a coordinator of Youth Program and as the Program director. She started working in the civil sector at the Students’ Union of Serbia (SUS) at the Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics, after which she worked at the University of Nis and within the Board of Directors of the Students’ Union of Serbia. During five years, Maja worked at the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Nis, after which she started working in Belgrade as coordinator of youth program and executive director. Maja Stojanovic is the president of the Board of Directors of the Human Rights and Democracy House from Belgrade and a member of Europe Team, expert group for promotion of European integrations in Serbia.

Jelena Stević

Sustainability Development Director

Jelena Stević is currently working as the Sustainability Development Director in Civic Initiatives. She has been working for Civic Initiatives since March 2003, where she has worked as office manager, assistant within the program for development of democracy, program assistant and secretary of NGO Federation in Serbia, assistant within the program for civic education, project coordinator for youth program, financial administrator and financial director. She completed training courses in the following areas: management of non-governmental organizations, training for promotion of tolerance and ethnic reconciliation through civil education, project writing for EU, as well as many others. She is fluent in English.

Nada Likar

Financial Director

Nada has been working in Civic Initiatives since January 2006; at first, she occupied the position of secretary, and after that she was the office manager and financial administrator. Since September 2021, Nada started working as the financial director. Nada has completed training in the area of project writing for EU, protection of personal data, financial management in non-governmental organizations and human resource management. Educated as an engineer of chemical technology. During the period from 1996-97, she was an activist of the opposition coalition Together (SPO, DS, GSS), and worked as a business secretary at the head office of SPO after the protest had finished. After that, she worked on administrative positions for several private companies. She taught mathematics, physic and chemistry to children for a long time. She is fluent in English. She is a mother of two girls.

Dragoslava Barzut

Public Policy Program Manager

Dragoslava Barzut is a writer and an activist. She has been active in the Civic Initiatives since 2021, firstly as a Networking Coordinator. From November 2021 she has been managing the Public Policy Program. She has been involved in LGBTIQ activism for over ten years and she

co-founded Da se zna! association, an online security base for documenting hate-motivated crimes. Dragoslava is an award winning author who published a collection of stories “The Golden Bullet” and a novel “Paper Disco Balls”. From 2012 until 2015 she was active in Labris – Belgrade based lesbian human rights organization, where she worked in the communications field. From 2012 to 2015, she was the coordinator of the FemSlam, an informal soccer group which aimed to empower LBTQ women through sport. Besides literature awards, she won the US Embassy in Serbia award for her contribution to a decrease of gender based violence and discrimination against women and LGBT+ people in 2017.

Ksenija Nikić

Capacity building Program Manager

Ksenija started working in CI as an intern in March 2018, after which she worked as an assistant on programs to strengthen the capacity of CSOs and the coordinator on the Program for the Development of Civil Society and Citizen Participation. She is currently in the position of Capacity Building Program Manager. She completed her basic studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, Department of History, and after that she continued her studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences, where she completed her master’s degree in US studies. She is particularly interested in topics related to the fight for human rights and civic education.

Uroš Jovanović

Public Policy Program Manager

Uroš has been involved with civil society for six years now and has gained expertise in project management and research in the field of fundamental rights. He has worked with human rights defenders and reported on human rights violations to domestic and international actors. Making the world a better place to live for everyone has motivated him to engage in activism since high school and later in professional citizens’ movements when he eventually started off work in the civil society sector in Belgrade, Serbia in 2018.

Dejana Stevkovski

Coordinator of the Project for Enabling Environment for Development of Civil Society

Dejana Stevkovski has been a member of Civic Initiatives since 2008. Immediately after her graduation from the Faculty of Political Sciences, she started working as office manager and became assistant within the program for development of civil society soon after. She was included in numerous projects of Civic Initiatives which aimed to build capacity of civil society organizations, advocated more significant inclusion of citizens and civil society organizations in the decision-making processes, and advocated adoption of legal and institutional framework for operation of civil society organizations. She is co-author of the Country Monitoring Report on Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development for 2013 and 2014 and of the Manual for citizen associations as social services’ providers. At the moment, she is a coordinator for the project for enabling environment for development of civil society. She is a mother of two boys.

Teodora Zahirović

Capacity building Program Coordinator

Teodora  graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences, after which she started working in Civic Initiatives. Since June 2017 she was a Project Assistant for youth and education and coordinated media projects. After that she became the PR manager, being in charge of the overall communications of Civic Initiatives. She is currently in the position of Coordinator of the Capacity Building Program and works on  supporting civil society, victims’ associations and transitional justice initiatives. Fluent in English.

Ivana Teofilović

Public Policy Programme Coordinator

Ivana joined Team CI as an intern in March 2018, after which she became a project assistant, and now she works as a Public Policy Programme Coordinator. She graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences, International Relations Department, European Integration module. She is currently completing her master’s studies in Project Management at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences. In Civic Initiatives she is currently working on projects dealing with freedom of expression and the media.

Ema Štefanac

Capacity building Program Coordinator

In 2018, she completed her bachelor studies in Italian language, Literature and Culture at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade, and her master’s studies in multidisciplinary studies at the University of Belgrade in the Educational Policy Program in 2020. Ema has been involved in education for almost 10 years through work with children, young people and teachers, as well as through the development of teaching methodologies, learning tools and informal education tools. In Civic Initiatives she implements the Civic Education program with the aim of making democratic, participatory and modern education accessible to everyone and becoming an indispensable part of the curriculum in Serbia.

Marija Drndić

Resource Center Media Associate

Marija Drndić joined the Civic Initiatives and civil sector in March 2021 as a media associate on the capacity building program. She was as a radio host and editor of a youth program at the state-owned community radio station in Melbourne, Australia, following which she joined the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) in its endeavor to improve the Serbian media landscape. During almost 15 years spent in this media association, she participated in and implemented many projects of domestic and international organizations, within the media support program of the Ministry of Culture, the European Union, the OSCE Mission, USAID and the like. In Civic Initiatives, she continues to work on the advancement of media through mentoring support to media hubs and building the capacity of local independent media.

Marko Miladinović

Financial assistant

Marko completed the bachelor studies of international politics – module: European integration at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, where he also completed his master’s studies on the United States Studies module. During his studies, he was active in extracurricular activities, seminars, and student organizations. He joined Civic Initiatives in November 2018 as an intern, then held the position of office manager and assistant of the Civil Society Development and Civic Participation Program. Currently, he is working as the financial assistant.

Biljana Baraković Radosavljević

Finance Administrator

Occupation: Graduate Economist

In CI since February 2021 in the position of financial administrator.

Many years of previous experience – finance in the business sector.

Tuba Avdiji

Field Coordinator

Tuba Avdiji joined Civic Initiatives in May 2021 as a field coordinator of a project dealing with the youth and issues of social protection and inclusion in Southern Serbia. Tuba holds a BA in Economics and Administrative Sciences, department of Management in Public Administration from International Balkan University in Skopje, including an exchange semester at Akdeniz University of Antalya.
She is incredibly enthusiastic about youth work and upskilling young talents.

Milica Branković

Field Coordinator

Milica joined the CI team in February, 2021 as a field coordinator on a project dealing with the youth and social protection services in southern Serbia. She has completed her undergraduate studies in journalism at the Faculty of Philosophy in Nis, and her master’s studies at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nis, majoring in Innovation Engineering. She has joined the civil sector after many years of experience in journalism, and her special interest in working in this organization is towards writing media pieces and working with people in the field, especially with the youth.

Jana Aleksić

Capacity Building Program Assistant

Jana joined Civic Initiatives as the assistant in the Capacity Building program in April 2022.
She graduated from the Department of Scandinavian languages and literatures at the University of Belgrade and later completed a master’s degree in Nordic literature at the University of Oslo. She has been active in different civil society organizations almost her whole life, and for many years she also worked as a teacher in Swedish.

Some of the topics she is especially interested in are human rights, ecology and intercultural exchange. She speaks Swedish, English and a bit of Norwegian.

Biljana Radusin

Capacity Building Program Assistant

Biljana joined Civic Initiatives as the Project assistant in April, 2021. She edits The Review of potential sources of funding, and news from NGOs. She has completed her graduate studies in Serbian literature and language at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, and her master’s studies at the ACIMSI gender studies of University in Novi Sad. She is  a long-time activist in Disability rights movement, as well as in the field of human and women’s rights.

The Center “Living Upright”, a self-representative association of persons with disabilities, put a new light on the phenomenon of disability as a civilizational and political issue. She participated in an international seminar in TEMPUS project “Equal access and expanding participation in higher education”. She was also a mentor on the project “Mentoring work with female students from underrepresented groups at the University and higher vocational schools”.

Biljana was the co-author of workshops on the topic of inclusion, public gatherings, forums and workshop “Easier to Realize Rights” with the Center for independent living of PWDs Serbia.

She was a member of the Council for Persons with Disabilities of the City Assembly of Novi Sad from 2016-2020. Since 2016, she has been an assistant to a child with autism within the project of providing temporary accommodation organized by the Center for Social Work of the City of Novi Sad.

Anastasija Petković

Capacity Building Program Assistant

Anastasija is a political science student, and has been active since elementary school, first through the student parliament, advocating for a better position of students. Then, in high school, she started volunteering in local and international organizations on various projects. She started her internship in Civic Initiatives in October 2021 in the Capacity Building Program and is also a member of the UNICEF Youth Committee, as well as the UNICEF Volunteer team.

She has always shown an affinity for social sciences. Sociology, history, humanities, international relations – social-cultural differences between countries, mental health. Anastasija devotes her free time to informal education – trainings, workshops, exchange programs, books…

Tijana Ilić

Communication Coordinator

She graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of Journalism and Communicology. Through her experiences working in various forms of media, including daily newspapers and periodicals, as well as online media, she honed her skills in journalism. Since 2013, she has been actively involved in political activism and has played a key role in the creation and implementation of various campaigns. In the years that followed, she held the position of Public Relations Manager within opposition political parties, where she was responsible for developing and executing communication strategies across both digital and traditional media platforms.

As of the beginning of 2022, she has joined the Civic Initiatives team and currently holds the position of Communication Coordinator.

Aleksandra Golubović

Office manager

Occupation: Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science- International Relations/European Integration

In CI since March 2021 in the position of office manager.

Many years of previous experience in the business sector.