IN MACEDONIA
Stella is a non-profit organisation with a mission to inspire, empower and connect girls and women by advancing access to education, entrepreneurial opportunities and social change.
Our mission began as an initiative in 2017 under the auspices of Impact – Institute for Research in Skopje. At the time, our to-be team was a group of five enthusiastic women working in academia, government, and field work in refugee camps. We united to tackle a deep concern we identified through our research of official data in North Macedonia: whilst a majority of women were successfully completing higher education, they were not pursuing jobs and remained largely economically inactive. We started conversations across the country and created the safe space women lacked to share their concerns. We established the first ever women-led and women-focused mentorship program in North Macedonia that focuses on higher education. With little resources but a huge passion for positive change, we very soon realised that our initiative had grown into something bigger and required its own structure. In August 2018, we registered Stella as a non-profit organisation in North Macedonia.