Support for Children in Flooded Areas of Serbia

Petar M. was only thirteen when he watched the whole house with everything in it, all the sheep and cows that his family had, all of it, just disappear in front of his eyes in a split second under the landslide during the floods. Luckily, he, his mom, grandma and a year-younger brother managed to save their lives. They ran uphill to the neighbours’ house. His Dad was 130km away working as a carpenter and couldn’t help the family that night.

For a long while, the neighbours were sharing their beds, food, clothes, all the necessities with Petar and his family. Then, with the material from the donations and State assistance, they built a new home, in a village some 30km uphill from the town of Krupanj and the river. The family rented some land and started growing fruits and vegetables. With his Dad far away, Petar became the oldest “man” in the house and took upon himself most of the field work in addition to going to school and getting all the good grades. “And I can drive all the machines in the field except for combine”, proudly adds, now 16-year old Petar, pointing to the agricultural machines in the field.

His mom, Snezana, smiles warmly whilst watching him but is very clear about the priorities at home: "There is a lot of work to be done both in and outside the house, but for the boys the school is the most important thing. They need to be educated, even if they choose to stay home and deal with agriculture."

With your help, we have been providing Petar with the scholarship which he uses for the bus ticket to the High School in the town where he has just started his second grade, for internet bills and all the books and material he can find related to mathematics. Yes, maths is his favourite subject. And not only that, with the scholarship money he has enrolled into the Archimedes Club and is successfully competing with young people from all over the country.

Thank you so much for helping us support Petar and his family! They wouldn’t have been able to send Petar and his brother to the secondary schools in the town, Petar wouldn’t have been pursuing his interests and dreams.

Please, help us continue bringing smiles to this children’s faces and support their education!

Links:

• Our website
• Our Facebook page

Two and a half years ago, we shared with you a story of Djurdjina P, a girl who lost everything to the worst floods in the region in more than a hundred years. Just two weeks after her 11^th birthday, her father saved her literally seconds before their house collapsed and was swept away together with everything the family had had. It took years for this girl to overcome trauma and nightmares that would wake her up in the middle of the night thinking that the water was drowning them all over again...

We provided this girl with the scholarship from the donations you made to help children victims of the floods . Other donors provided a small prefabricated house for her and her family on the other side of a small town of Krupanj in the Western Serbia. Her elder sister won the scholarship to go to Business College at the time. All this helped both Djurdjina and her family to start rebuilding their lives.

Today, Djurdjina is a proud teenager who has just graduated from the elementary school with all honours, who has received half a dozen Diplomas for excellence and awards at the knowledge competitions in different subjects and, above all, the Vuk Karadzic Award - a highest State Award for the extraordinary achievements in all educational areas. She has just been accepted at the General High School and has all the reasons in the world to be a happy accomplished teenager.

“I still can’t forget how everything just disappeared in a second. You know, these heavy rains over the last several weeks have just brought back the fear, I cried again and was only watching the skies and the river for days. The river started overflowing the banks again, but luckily, the raining stopped and the protection sand bags were enough to keep it there...”

Djurdjina doesn’t mention the other fear – how will she be able to go to the school from September, what she will wear and how she will buy the needed textbooks and school material for a new school, but it is obvious. Her father cannot work as he has become an invalid after being injured at work, her mother brings in the only small income into the household and they have no extra support from anywhere else. The secondary school is in the town, so she needs to go by bus and pay for the transport every day, the textbooks are expensive... And she never mentions a bike that she had wanted for a long time and got for her 11^th birthday, two weeks before it disappeared in the floods. They have never had enough money to spare on a new bike again...

On July the 18^th, from 9:00 in the morning Eastern Time (15:00 in Europe), GlobalGiving Foundation will match 50% every donation you make, up to 500 USD, as long as 120,000 Matching Funds last.

On this Bonus Day, you can help us continue providing the scholarships, buy textbooks or pay for the transportation costs or school snacks to Djurdjina and other children like her, whose lives have changed completely in the floods. Please, donate whatever amount you can on this day and as soon as the Bonus day starts (the available matching funds go fast).

Please, help us help these children to go on with their lives, put behind the disaster they went through and get the education they can and work hard for!

Links:

• Our website
• Our Facebook page