Caritas Serbia and Public Investments Management Office of the Republic of Serbia are organizing a regional conference Disaster Risk Reduction – Trans-border cooperation between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which will take place on 30th and 31st May 2016 in Palace of Serbia (Belgrade Conference Room), Bulevar Mihajla Pupina 2, Novi Beograd.

In addition to a review of activities that followed the floods of May 2014 in the Western Balkans, this two-day conference will be dedicated to plans for improvement of disaster protection systems in the two countries as well as to the possibilities for cooperation advancement in activities related to risk reduction and management. A special attention will be given to the role of civil society organizations in this field. 

The conference will gather the representatives of leading state institutions in the field, donors and international community, civil society organizations and local authorities’ representatives from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.  

This conference is realised in the framework of regional Caritas project „Disaster Risk Reduction“ undertaken in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The project is funded by Caritas Austria.

Here you can download the agenda: Conference 30-31 May 2016

Hasib, Sajab, Mehdi, Subhan, Hasiba… Smile, joy, game, happiness… Cry, sadness, fear… What does a child know?! Or what does this same child need to know and experience in the years when playing and going to school are his mayor day tasks? His life becomes very uncertain, like an equation with many unknown variables. He needs to learn to find solutions for him and his family, cause that’s the only way he can overcome this refugee mathematics.

While arriving to the refugee camp the mothers and children are already waiting with anticipation. They run to us and shout: “let’s go to the classroom, we have a lesson!” We hold hands and run to their escape from reality. We go there where they are safe and where they can express their phantasy, but also their worries. We color the drawings on which there is a star, the star of Afghanistan and a house. Then we proudly put them on the wall. We play board games and we are all very happy when we roll the dice and get the number 6. We count the fields of the board in Serbian, English and Persian.

The mothers also draw, to express their sadness for their husbands and other children lost on the road. We teach them how to write with Latin characters and we write their names, in Persian and in Serbian. This way we feel that closer to them and show we are thinking of them. Other than Hasib, who is ten years old, all other children speak only Farsi. But we understand each other well, the language is not important. In fact, nothing is important. Just our game and us. In one moment we are like rabbits, trying to catch each other and everything turns into laughter, while in the other moment we take names of famous football players and play football. We sing and dance to their national songs and don’t let them feel like they betrayed their country.

We are restless and we enjoy small things. We enjoy a sincere child’s smile and in the reassuring looks of mothers who give us will and motivation to go on. Their struggle for a life without fear, but our struggle as well, means welcoming them and sharing their burden. They are humans. We are humans. And this matters the most.

Olga Zdravkovic, Arabic translator at the Caritas team

of psycho-social support in Belgrade

The work of the psycho-support team is financed by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Caritas Germany