The day they come of age, they have to go out onto the street! The harsh reality of “children from homes” in Serbia: Kurir’s major campaign for those everyone
Kurir will provide assistance to Centre “Zvezda”, which in its three “Houses of Opportunity” is currently caring for 22 young people who, once they come of age, are left to fend for themselves and no longer have the right to live in social welfare institutions or with foster families if they have not enrolled at university
Eighteen years and one day! A phrase as unusual as it is difficult and painful.
In Serbia, most people, on reaching adulthood, continue to enjoy the privilege of the family home, with a secure meal, a comfortable bed, their mother’s embrace, their father’s advice... They are in no hurry to become independent. Everything suits them just fine.
But their peers whose upbringing was marked by homes for neglected childrenand foster families, correctional institutions or safe houses, pushed to the margins in the social hierarchy and marginalised in many ways, await their 18th birthday with enormous fear. The very next day they are left entirely to fend for themselves. In every sense. By the letter of the law, they no longer belong where they slept and were fed until yesterday.
And there are at least 500 of them every year! They are forced to leave the social welfare system, and the community is not ready to welcome them with open arms. That is why a good number of them set off down the path of crime and everything connected with it and all the bad that goes with it. Far fewer are those who manage to fight so that that dark side does not pull them into itself. In order to be accepted on this side of the law, they need far more strength and perseverance and desire and effort than anyone else. They enter the adult world already bearing the stitched-on label of the abandoned, the less worthy, the less important... And it is not easy to remove it.
We are here to help and to give them a chance for a normal and good-quality life. And that is in cooperation with the Centre for the Social Integration of Children and Young People “Zvezda” from Belgrade, which Tatjana Dražilović founded a decade and a half ago. Kurir wants to support her idea of giving these young people, whom we are speaking about, what they lack most when that first day dawns for them after a full 18 years.
Three “Houses of Opportunity”
The association has already established three “Houses of Opportunity” for their accommodation in Belgrade, Kragujevac and Niš. It also offers them the chance to complete their education, to find a job... In creative workshops they are also taught traditional crafts. Quite simply, everything is done to make it easier for them to earn an honest living and later start a family, so that their children never go through what they themselves experienced.
“Centre ‘Zvezda’ was founded in 2013 with the aim of supporting young people who have some kind of need, regardless of whether these are young people coming from a situation without parental care or those who at some point have some family situation that is not particularly good for them,” Dražilović explains, having today visited the Kurir newsroom with the residents of the “House of Opportunity”:
Residents of the “House of Opportunity” visited the Kurir newsroom
“They are mostly children from social welfare institutions or foster families, but we also have unaccompanied young people, young people from the migrant population, young people coming from some form of domestic violence, from some form of poverty, single-parent families and so on, and they have some potential to be able to do something.”
The greatest number of them leave the social welfare system at the age of 18, but the state has envisaged providing them with assistance up to the age of 26 if they enter a programme of higher or university education. Unfortunately, that is most often not the case. According to statistical data, only three per cent enrol at university, a higher vocational school or some other form of higher education.
Residents of the “House of Opportunity” visited the Kurir newsroom
“So they are not in a position where they have to begin an independent life at 18, but the greatest number of them do not even finish secondary school, and therefore at 18 they lose the right to stay in alternative care,” says our interlocutor.
Many are not ready to take control of their lives
After leaving homes and foster families, the local government of Belgrade provides them with financial support in the amount of around 120,000 dinars a month for one year so that they can become independent. However, even with that money, many are not ready to take full control of their lives.
“In the ‘House of Opportunity’ programme, young people do not receive accommodation alone, but spend up to 12 hours a day with volunteers and employees learning social skills, cooking, household maintenance, budgeting and money management. We try to find them work, to influence their formal and informal education. On the labour market, in that state, without work experience, without completed secondary education and without any informal education, it is very difficult for them to find employment. The programme is adapted to their needs, and contact with beneficiaries is maintained even years later in order to provide them with additional support.”
Branislav Bjelica, writer and editor at Kurir
‘I myself brought up my younger brother without parents, you have to fight prejudice’
Writer and journalist Branislav Bane Bjelica, editor of Kurir’s print edition, gave the residents of the “House of Opportunity” a motivational talk, sharing in it his own life experience as well. Branislav lost both his father and his mother early, and at a very young age became guardian to his younger brother. And he had very much to say to Kurir’s guests and to give them important advice that can keep them away from the streets and direct them towards the right values.
“You cannot prepare yourself for anything in life. I am not doing this now as a journalist, but as a man who has been through all sorts of bad things in life. I would like, in 30 or 35 years’ time, for one of you to be standing in this place and speaking as a successful person. At the age of 19 I was left without both parents, I brought up my 10-year-old brother. I know what it is like without parents, and I know what it is like to be alone. And I know that it is hard for all of you. So, I had absolutely no one. You are fortunate in that you have Tanja, who wants to help you and who is helping you. I grew up in Voždovac with most of the criminals from the film See You in the Obituary. They went down the path they went down, only two of them are still alive. All the others were already dead by the age of 21, 22, 23. From the age of 19 until today, apart from having been editor-in-chief of various newspapers, I have written six books, I have two houses, two cars, two motorbikes, one child, two wives,” Bane lists, which in the end made the young people laugh as well:
“You are, from the very start, at the age of 18 or 19, fighting prejudice. People are like that... There are good people too, but out of a thousand, ten are good. You have to fight for yourselves, one day you will find employment. I worked in the market, sold fruit and vegetables, nothing was beneath me. I went from shop to shop looking for work and, when they saw me, they would say: no. I wanted to work, I did not want to sell heroin. You can all fight a great deal of prejudice in life and when you get through that, and then when you find a job, find a husband or a wife, have a child, buy a car, go to the seaside, when 20 or 30 years have passed, then you look at yourself in the mirror and say – I made it!”
Dražilović adds that they spend an average of two years in the program, with the possibility of an extension if they are not ready for independence. There are currently 22 of them, and so far more than 130 have gone through the program.
Ivan Čorbić, head of Kurir’s print edition, took our guests through the newsroom, introducing them to every section and explaining how the most influential newspaper in the Balkans is produced and why our website is the best in Serbia.