Education Serbia Project #17206

Support for Children in Flooded Areas of Serbia

by Pomoc deci

Project Report | Feb 24, 2015
Your Support has made it possible: Meet Marija from Obrenovac!

By Ljiljana Vasic | Director

Helping the family with six children

Dear Friends,
Over the last three months You have helped us raise additional 3,000 US Dollars and and so far, within only nine months, we have gathered almost 50,000 US Dollars!
Just last week, we visited a family in Obrenovac, the town that was almost completely under water last Spring and took clothes, food, toiletries and some toys to six children who are still without any electricity or water in Zvecka, a suburban part of the town.
Marija B who is only 13 years old and still in the elementary school, introduced us to her siblings and parents.
“My eldest brother, Stefan, is 20 years old and my youngest sister Katarina is only 3 years old. We all live here and it is very hard to live without electricity and light, especially during the winter when it gets dark early in the day. Danilo (15), Stevan (14) and I are in the elementary school, whilst Jovan (4) and Katarina should be going to kindergarten, but we can’t afford it. Sometimes, if I want to learn and do my homework for school, I have to wake up as soon as the Sun rises to be able to see what I need to read and write.”

Both parents used to work and provide for the family, but they are both out of work now. The bakery where Nebojsa, the father, used to work, was completely destroyed together with all the machines in the floods and since then has not been opened. “I try to find work wherever possible. I help other people, who have been flooded clean up the debris and rebuild their homes and I sometimes get paid”, he says with an uneasy shrug. Tanja, his wife is taking up any kind of work she can find (cleaning homes, ironing, gardening etc.), but they both can hardly earn enough for food for the family.

In addition to the things we gave them, we also signed a contract for the stipend for Marija and are looking for the ways to help them get back the running water and electricity.

We would like to help the youngest two children start going to kindergarten and we can only do that if you continue supporting our efforts to assist the children hit by the terrible floods not only last Spring but also by a new wave in south Serbia just less than a month ago.

We hope you will join us and help OUR children get the food, clothing, and education they need to be happy and healthy and to feel equal to other children!

Thank you very much for the interest and support for our project. Please feel free to contact us with any questions, comments or ideas at pomocdeci@eunet.rs

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Nov 25, 2014
"I will eat with my friends at school, too, now!"

By Ljiljana Vasic | Director

Andrija and his mother with the bricks for toilet.

Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for your continued support to our efforts to help children and their families affected by the floods in Serbia this year! With additional 13,000 USD that you have donated, over the last three months, we have managed to raise a total of 46,500 USD since we started the campaign.
Over the last three months, we have provided stipends for the full school year to 15 children. Among them is little Andrija T.

He is only six years old and lives alone with his mother in Paracin. The subterranean waters in May destroyed part of their home, bathroom and toilet, but they could not get support from the municipality because only “direct damages” produced from the rain were eligible for compensation. Social services even threatened to take Andrija away from his mother because of totally unacceptable living conditions without any running water or sewage system working. And all of that happened only two months after father died of a heart attack. We agreed to help Andrija directly by providing him with the stipend, providing for a free snack at preschool and have managed to gather some construction material so that his mother can rebuild bathroom and toilet.
“My Mom says that I will eat with my friends too, at school now. Before, when they were eating I was sitting and drawing something waiting for them to come back” – said Andrija excitedly when we went to see them and sign the contract for the support.
With your donations, we also paid for free snacks in school for 56 children in ten municipalities, have assisted five families in buying the heaters for winter and have provided winter clothes and shoes for 34 children in seven municipalities.

We now have the opportunity to raise more funds through End of the Year Campaign. The campaign begins at 00:00:01 EST (06:01 am Belgrade time) on December 1st and runs through 23:59:59 pm EST (05:59 am Belgrade time) on December 31st. We need to raise at least $3,000 from 30 donors in order to qualify for a bonus award. And there are several awards that if we win will go directly to the children and their families that have suffered from the floods.
Please, help us help these children. Let your friends and colleagues know what we are trying to do, how they can get involved and how much it means to these children.

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Aug 21, 2014
100 Children Helped in the first 3 Months!

By Ljiljana Vasic | Project Leader

Milica S. with her Grandmother at collective cente

Dear Friends,

Milica S. who will start the sixth grade lives with her grandma and has lost everything in the floods. She is still in the collective centre in Krnjaca and does not know when she will be able to have a place to call home. She is one of 20 children for whom the decision was made to provide stipends for the whole school year. With your help, our project "Support for Children in Flooded Areas of Serbia" has raised over 33,500 USD since May the 19th when we started the campaign.
As immediate measure, in May, we bought the food, hygienic materials, toiletries and other real necessities for 1300 USD an distributed directly to the children and their families in the collective centres in Belgrade (FMP and hotel Beograd) and transported the aid to Velika Plana and Smederevska Palanka. In June, we organized playgroups in the collective centres for children to play, additional tutoring for those who were about to graduate from the elementary schools to prepare for the final exams and we distributed more than 100 books, notebooks, and toys.
From June to August, we were travelling across all the flooded areas and were making the lists of the children who needed the assistance for the coming school year, we contacted schools and preschools to see if their children would be able to continue the education in their buildings or would have to temporarily go to some other schools and were collecting stories and needs of those most heavily affected by the floods.

We have also bought textbooks for ten children and are awaiting the decision to which school additional 10 children will go since their original ones are still not functional to buy additional 10 sets. For 26 children in collective centres in Belgrade, we will buy winter jackets and shoes.
We now have the opportunity to raise more funds from the prize money for the best photo posted on GlobalGiving. Our photo as one of 15 finalists is competing in the category – Give Support. All you need to do is to go to the following link, vote, give your email address and confirm your vote when the confirmation e-mail arrives from GlobalGiving. The voting lasts until the 29th August.
http://www.globalgiving.org/poll/vote/?pollOptionId=821

From September 3rd until September 10th, GlobalGiving will be offering a one-time 100% match on all new recurring donations! This is a great incentive for you to sign up to give to our project on a monthly basis.
Please, help us help more children.

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