News · Results · Stories
What's happening at EVEC.
EVEC Kocani news in one place — open calls, project results and stories from our programmes across North Macedonia. This page is at the very start of its life: our first stories are still being written, and everything we have already delivered sits on our verifiable project record.
Latest from the network
The current update
An honest word before the first card: this news page launches almost empty, on purpose. EVEC Kocani has been active since 2014 and our network has delivered seventeen EU projects, but this website is new — so rather than back-fill the page with re-dated posts, we are starting the archive from zero and letting it grow at the speed things actually happen. Our first stories are being written; in the meantime, everything we have already delivered can be checked, reference code by reference code, on our project record.
Green Pathways: Empowering NEET Youth for a Sustainable Future
Our Stip branch is a partner in this Erasmus+ youth mobility project (KA153), running from September 2025 to October 2026 under a coordinator in Romania, with partner organisations from Romania, North Macedonia, Poland, Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria. It is the newest line on our project record — and when it finishes, its results will be published here as this page's first Project Result post.
See the full project record →Why is this a page item and not a post? Because we do not publish posts about things that have not produced anything to read yet. Green Pathways is listed here as a fact — a project underway, with its reference code attached — and it will become a post when there is a result or a story to show you. That is the standard every future item on this page will be held to.
The tags
How to read EVEC Kocani news
Two very different people will land on this page. One is looking for a place on a project that is open right now; the other is sizing us up as a partner and wants to see what we have actually delivered. The tags and the dates do most of the work of separating those two readers, so they are worth thirty seconds of your time. Here is what each label on an EVEC Kocani news item will mean — and why an old date is not the warning sign most visitors take it for.
Applications are being read right now. The post carries the detail: what the project is, who it is for, and what is covered. And a call keeps this tag on purpose — we leave a call open until the right volunteer applies, so an Open Call carrying a date from months ago is open deliberately, not left up through neglect. This matters from day one: our ESC Quality Label is held by the association, so a placement can be based in any of Kocani, Stip, Strumica, Delcevo and Lozovo — and Kocani, Stip and Strumica are also listed in their own right on the European Youth Portal. All five are looking for ESC volunteers — Stip especially — so the first Open Call posts on this page will not be long in coming. If the tag says Open Call, the call is open.
The project has finished and this post is the output. What the group produced, and the material anyone can look at afterwards. If you are reading EVEC Kocani news as a prospective partner organisation rather than as a participant, these are the posts that will matter to you: they are the evidence rather than the advertising. Until the first one is published, the same job is done by our project record, where every delivered project sits with its official reference code.
A first-hand account from someone who was there. No deadline, no application, no logistics — just what the days were actually like. If a call leaves you unsure whether a project is for you, read a story instead: a call tells you the dates and what is covered, a story tells you whether you would enjoy being in the room. Our members have produced a bilingual English–Macedonian monthly youth magazine before, so writing things down afterwards is a habit we bring with us, not one we are promising to acquire.
The dates have passed. When calls close, we will keep them online rather than deleting them. Together they will become the public record of what EVEC Kocani has run; individually, a closed call is still the fullest description of what that kind of project involves. Read them for the shape of the thing, then apply to whatever is open on the day you visit.
Which language will the news be in?
English first — this page and the posts it links to are written in English. Where a call is addressed to young people already living in North Macedonia, we plan to publish it in Macedonian as well, and any Macedonian-language entry will be flagged so you can spot it at a glance. Open an item in either language if the subject looks relevant to you.
What the date on an entry actually tells you
Every entry will carry the date it was published, not the dates on which the project runs. The two are not the same: Green Pathways, the current item above, runs from September 2025 to October 2026 regardless of when we write about it. The project dates live inside the post. That is why we ask you to check the date before applying — the publication date tells you how old the information is, and the post tells you whether the thing has already happened, is about to happen, or is still waiting for the right person to turn up.
The arc
From an EVEC Kocani news post to a place on a project
The mechanics behind the calls that will appear on this page are the same whichever country the project runs in, and the same ones our network has used across seventeen projects. Here they are end to end — from the moment a call appears in EVEC Kocani news to the moment a story about the same project appears further down the page.
- Find the call. New opportunities go up on this page first, before Facebook, before Instagram and before anywhere else. The top of the page holds the current items; as the archive grows, everything we publish will stay below it.
- Read the whole post, not the headline. The post is the source of truth for that project: the dates, the country, who it is aimed at, and what is covered. Different projects cover different things, and grant support is set by the current Erasmus+ rules for North Macedonia — so only the post for that project can tell you what applies. The cards on this page are signposts; the post is the document.
- Get in touch. Use the route the call itself gives you, or write to contact@evec.org.mk. We reply within 3 working days. If that window passes in silence, send the message again rather than reading silence as a refusal.
- Selection. Places are limited, and the numbers are set by each project's grant agreement, not by us. Applying is the start of a conversation, not a booking — and volunteers with fewer opportunities are a priority for us, not an afterthought.
- Preparation. Projects come with an infopack — the practical document that covers travel, accommodation and programme. If we are your sending organisation, you also get pre-departure training before you go and reintegration support when you come back.
- Go. You travel, you take part, you come home. What happens on the ground is set by the project's own theme and timetable; the call gives you the frame, and the project itself fills it in. If you are volunteering with us long-term, the practical offer — mentor, language course, accommodation — is set out on the ESC page.
- The part most people miss. Projects come back to this page afterwards, tagged Project Result or Story. Taking part and then writing about it is part of the normal arc here — it is how an empty news page becomes an archive worth reading.
How long does a project last? We do not decide that
The honest answer is that the length is not ours to set. It is fixed by the Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps rules for the relevant action and by the grant agreement behind that specific project. That is why you will not find a house rule anywhere on this page announcing that projects run for some standard number of days: we are not inventing rules, the programmes are. Green Pathways runs September 2025 to October 2026 because its grant agreement says so; the dates that apply to you will be printed in the post for the opportunity you are looking at, and nowhere else.
If you are coming at this from the other direction — a school, a university department or a sending organisation that already holds the grant and already knows its dates — then tell us your dates and we build around them. Write to contact@evec.org.mk and we reply within 3 working days.
While the archive grows
The record behind the news
A news page with no history could be hiding anything, so here is ours, in numbers you can check. The archive above starts from zero; the work does not. From the network's first projects in 2015 to Green Pathways today, every project our network has delivered is listed with its official reference code on the project record, and each code can be searched independently on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform.
Straight answers
EVEC Kocani news — the questions worth answering before you ask
These are the questions we expect this page to raise, answered here so that you do not have to send them. If your question is not below, write anyway: we would far rather answer it once than have you guess.
What actually counts as EVEC Kocani news?
Three kinds of post, and deliberately nothing else: open calls for Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps projects; results from projects that have finished; and first-person stories from the people who took part. There will be no press-release filler and no recycled sector commentary — everything on this page will come out of a project we or our branches run, host, send people to, or deliver as partners.
The page is nearly empty. Why publish it at all?
Because the alternative is worse. We could have filled this page with back-dated posts about projects from 2015 onwards and made it look ten years old on day one — plenty of sites do. We would rather show you one real current item, a verifiable record of our network’s seventeen projects on the project record, and an honest empty archive that grows at the speed things actually happen.
There is an Open Call here dated months ago. Has nobody taken it down?
It is up because it is open. We leave a call open until the right volunteer applies — we would rather hold a place open for months than fill it with the wrong person. So read an old date on an Open Call as information about when we started looking, not as evidence that we have stopped. It is the misreading of pages like this one we would most like to prevent.
How long would I be away?
That depends on the project, and it is genuinely not our decision to make. Duration is set by the Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps rules for the relevant action and by the grant agreement behind the project; the exact dates for any given opportunity will be printed in its own post. If you already hold dates of your own, because your institution holds the grant, send them to us and we will work to them.
How quickly will you reply?
Within 3 working days. That covers everything — an application to a call, a question about a project that has already run, a first approach from a partner organisation abroad. If 3 working days pass in silence, something has gone wrong with the message rather than with your application, so send it again to contact@evec.org.mk.
What does it cost to take part?
Read the call, because projects differ and only the call is authoritative. What is covered — travel, accommodation, meals — is set by the current Erasmus+ rules for North Macedonia and by each project's grant agreement, and the post for a project will say plainly what applies. We will not quote figures here that a grant agreement elsewhere could contradict.
For long-term ESC volunteering hosted by us, the practical package — accommodation, mentor, language course, days off — is documented on the ESC page.
I am under 18. Is any of this open to me?
Some projects are — our target groups start at 17, and our school and youth work reaches younger people still. Minors take part with parental consent, per our safeguarding policy. The age range for any specific opportunity is printed in its call, so check the post before writing.
I do not want to travel abroad. Is any of this for me?
Some of it, although you would not guess as much from this page alone. Alongside the mobilities, EVEC Kocani runs local volunteering and online volunteering and takes on interns, and Get Involved is the entry point for all of them. Those routes are not published as dated calls, so they will never appear in the news archive.
I represent an organisation, not a participant. Where should I start?
With the project record rather than the news — it lists every project our network has delivered, with the reference codes a partner search needs, alongside our OID (E10119353) and PIC (943554018). The trust strip at the top of this page carries the same identifiers. From there, the Erasmus+ hub sets out the strands we work across, and we reply to partner enquiries within 3 working days.
Save yourself the e-mail
Who EVEC Kocani news is not for
Saying this plainly saves time on both sides. If one of the descriptions below fits you, the calls that will appear on this page are the wrong door — not because you are unwelcome, but because they will not give you what you came for.
People looking for a salaried job
What this page will carry are learning mobilities, volunteering placements and traineeships under Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps. A volunteering placement can read like a job advert and is not one: it is not employment, and reading calls as vacancies ends in disappointment on both sides.
Anyone who needs a guaranteed place
Calls are selections, not queues. The number of places on any project is fixed by its grant agreement, and applying is the start of a conversation, not a booking. The numbers in the posts will be the numbers.
Anyone after a subsidised holiday
Where accommodation, meals and travel are covered, they come attached to a working programme with a theme, a timetable and something produced at the end — which is precisely what the Project Result posts on this page will document, in public, afterwards.
Anyone who needs to leave next week
Dates come from each project's grant agreement, not from the day you happen to find this page. If nothing currently open suits you, the project record shows the kind of thing our network runs — so read that, and check back.
Everyone else should read the current update above, look at what is open on the day they visit, and get in touch. This page exists so that an opportunity and a person can find each other, and the mistake we would most like to prevent is the good candidate who reads a date, assumes the door has shut, and says nothing at all.
Never miss the first call
EVEC Kocani news is just beginning — new calls, results and stories will land on this page first. There is no newsletter yet, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Until then, two honest options.
Follow us where we already post, or write to us once and tell us what you are looking for — we reply within 3 working days and will point you at the right page when something opens.
EVEC Kocani’s Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps projects are co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Explore the site
Find your way in
Erasmus+
The Erasmus+ hub
Funded learning, exchanges and volunteering for youth, schools, VET and adults.
Open the hub →Get Involved
Ways to take part
Not ready to travel? Volunteer locally or online, or join as an intern.
Get involved →Track record
The project record
Seventeen EU projects across our network, with their reference codes — the evidence behind this page.
Verify it →EVEC Kocani · European Voluntary and Educational Center Kocani · OID E10119353 · PIC 943554018 · ESC Quality Label valid to 31/12/2027 · Kocani, North Macedonia · contact@evec.org.mk