‘Zinak’ is a civil society organisation in Montenegro, which works to protect the rights of children and single parents and their inclusion in the society. In the recent months, Zinak has been working to promote women’s employability and entrepreneurship and give voice to artistic talent of non-established Montenegro young artists. Since the emergence of the COVID19 virus pandemic, Zinak diverted its activities by planning and organising a number of activities online.

The first such project implemented and supported by the Ministry of Culture, was named “Montenegrin Art Circle project”. It intended to bring together young people with passion and interest for music to record and share their songs with the public. Using music helped them ease the pressure of isolation, lack of social contacts, and psychological distress. For this activity, Zinak invited renowned musicians to participate in the project and motivate young artists to join and support them to overcome the fear of public appearance. Young artists’ videos were released on the CSO’s FB page and received considerable coverage. The success of this initiative encouraged “Zinak” to continue similar projects in the future.

The second project entitled ‘’Equal in Business – Equal in Rights’’ and supported by the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, focused on training women online on learning to grow spices, aromatic and medicinal herbs17 women coming from different social backgrounds participated in this project. The process included: setting up a Viber Group called “Plant Cultivation”, used as a platform for sharing materials, photos and videos; Providing detailed information on plant cultivation processes; Sharing experiences, best practices, feedback, comments and suggestions; Organising daily games and offer giveaways such as seed bags, etc. The project’s participants were highly motivated to start planting seeds at their homes and gardens and they found this activity relaxing.

Zinak is grass-root organisation from Montenegro established on February 2015 with the aim of contributing to the protection of children’s and single parents’ rights and their inclusion

in the society. It supports women who are single mothers and victims of violence and their children.