Tim za socijalno uključivanje i smanjenje siromaštva

In the last two years more than 400 young people from this south-eastern city participated in about 50 different projects created by the „Pirot E Publika” NGO; they have been successfully collaborating with the Roma population and, as a result, a common Resource centre has been created.

Workshops on social activism, volunteerism and public performance; charity parties; ecology workshop during which an illegal dump in the village of Berilovac was cleaned out; informing secondary school students about the dangers of substance abuse; organising a market for books and graphic novels exchange; photography workshop – these are only a few of the long list of projects and activities carried out by the “Pirot E Publika” activists since they started working less than two years ago.

According to Nemanja Živković, they are most proud of the fact that more than 400 young people have participated in those activities, with the regular and equal participation of Roma youth. Their last success, according to Živković, is the creation of the Resource centre, apart from “E Publika” there are other members both Roma and other civil society organisations: “Ternipe” (Youth), Cultural and information centre “Pralipe” (Brotherhood), “Osmeh” (Smile), ecological association “Gea”, “Žene Juga” (Women of South), “Osveženje”(Refreshment), association of parents with disabled children “Fenix”, and others.

“Our idea is to share experiences, collaborate on different projects and contribute to our areas of expertise in order to improve the lives of young people in our city”, explains Nemanja Živković from “Pirot E Publika” NGO.

Within the “MladGrad 2013” award, given for the last four years by Civil Initiatives, “Pirot E Publika” received a special recognition for the improvement of the position of the youth from vulnerable groups, not only because of the long list of successful projects, but also because of their regular weekly meetings frequented by the Roma youth.

Nemanja Živković explains how the collaboration came into being.

“It was the next logical step, because they have been active in Pirot for the last 12 years, and they had behind them a number of very successful projects.”

Radovan Aleksić from the Resource centre says that back when the first Roma non-government organisations were being founded, more than a decade ago – 80 percent of Roma children in Pirot were being enrolled in schools for children with disabilities.

“A large percentage wasn’t even included in the education system. Today the situation is completely different! The inclusion of Roma children is at 99.8 percent and there are no children in schools for the disabled. We are especially proud of about 30 high school, university and college students,” he says and adds that this was helped significantly by the fact that Pirot was one of the first towns in Serbia where the local government received the Coordinator for Roma issues. Aleksandar Durmišević, the current coordinator, adds that they gladly accepted the idea of forming the Resource centre. Since they are geographically close to Bulgaria, they are talking to organisations from this European Union member state about joining the Centre. They are also talking to other organisations of Bulgarian minorities, non-government organisations from Bela Palanka, Dimitrovgrad and Babušnica. All of them believe in achieving their highly set goal.

“According to some research, less than one percent of Serbian youth is active within their communities. Within the next two years, we want to become the city where this number is five percent of the young population,” Nemanja Živković reveals their ambitious goal.

“Why shouldn’t Pirot be the city of the youth? Hope for something like that comes from at least 200 people who have showed readiness and willingness to participate and contribute their ideas to every single one of our projects and activities.”

“In less than two years at least 10 of them have been enabled to write and implement projects, they are full of ideas” – Živkovic explains why he is so confident and adds that young people are active as long as they are presented with attractive contents.

“On the other hand they have an obligation. It is not a small thing when their parents call and ask when there will be a sequel to the “On the dark side of life” play, that deals with the issues of drug abuse”, says Durmišević. Young Roma actors, non-professionals, performed this play in schools in Pirot and its surroundings and were met with rave reviews. Now the parents from schools they didn’t perform in are calling and asking them to come and do the play.

In their opinion presence on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter and regular website updates added to the popularity of their programmes.