Who We Are
Fuel Macedonia is a UK registered charity established to prevent and relieve poverty and bring relief to those in financial hardship in North Macedonia.
The charity’s aim is to support locally run initiatives that can become the long-term solutions to local issues.
The charity is run by a dedicated team of trustees based in the UK. They are responsible for the management and operations of the charity and ensuring that UK Charity Commission requirements are met.
The Trustees are committed to ensuring that all funds donated to Fuel Macedonia are used to support genuine needs and purposes. For further details please see our Grant Making and Due Diligence Policies. Our commitment is to ensure that 100% of money received in donations from supporters (excluding money transfer and exchange rate fees) goes directly to the local needs on the ground! This means that supporter donations do not go towards the administration or other running costs of the charity.
History
It all began after a group of us from different locations and backgrounds in London had been on our first trips to Tetovo between 2013 - 2015: friendships were made and we were quickly smitten by the people, captivated by the beauty of the land, intrigued by its history and motivated in compassion by the conditions under which many people lived.
Since 2017, before this charity was birthed, the founders (original trustees) had been making trips to Tetovo every couple of months taking small teams from London. We were involved with projects in Tetovo and Gostivar (a nearby city) involving communities, schools, kindergartens and universities. Through our involvement with these projects, and the many scrumptious meals and ice creams in between, we established lasting friendships with locals and had our eyes opened to the needs of their communities.
Many of the projects we were involved with were run by a local man who had set up an NGO for the community. He identified specific needs in the local communities, particularly that winter heating and being able to buy food were very real issues for some families. In the summer of 2019, we started fundraising for these needs and were rapidly overwhelmed by the support from churches, businesses and individuals in the UK. We, therefore, started a charity operating under a small charities constitution in that September, enabling us to support 19 families with food and/or winter heating.
The small charity was a great start and highlighted to us the impact we could have through fundraising. However, it had limitations and it was clear, with our desire to increase the impact on the communities we had come to love, that expanding to a fully registered charity was the right next-step. So, Fuel Macedonia was born.
Now
We are thrilled to continue our involvement with the original projects supporting families in need, and now with a fully registered charity we hope to have a wider reach. More recent connections have led us to investigate other potential projects in Skopje (the capital), as well as in Tetovo and Gostivar.
We are looking at supporting an IT micro-school in Tetovo that will enable students to obtain relevant industry skillsets to feed into the developing IT sector in Macedonia, therefore enabling them to obtain meaningful employment in their own country.
A door opened during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 to provide food for homeless and financially challenged households in a northern district of Skopje. We are helping a local partner to look at longer-term solutions to the issues facing them.
We have already started connecting with other organisations that share our heart and purpose for the people and the country of North Macedonia and are always open to new collaborative partnerships.
If you would like to know more about who we are and how you can support the charity then please do get in touch.
