Street Children
Organisation: Centre for Youth Integration
Countries: Serbia
They work in the Belgrade streets. They live in drainage holes, abandoned cellars, train carriages, parks and corridors. They don’t have regular and healthy meals or access to health care. They don’t go to school. Very often they are victims of violence and prostitution. They are called the street children. However, they don’t have time to be children.
The street children can be as young as five. Their life stories vary. Some are in the streets because their families are poor and could not afford to feed them or they have been forced by their parents to work. The others have been abandoned. Some have fled the abuse from the family or relatives. The others have run away from the orphanages where they were the subject of harassment by the older children. As many of their parents do not hold proper identity documents, some of them have become invisible for the institutions. Living in the streets, with their prejudices, violence and poverty, children often develop psychological problems. The street carries dilemmas or compromises they are not ready to accept.
Since August 2007, there is a place in Belgrade which the street children consider a safe heaven. They can eat, wash, sleep and get medical check-ups there. They can play, sing or attend the workshops. Most importantly for them, they choose when to drop in and when to leave. Their safe heaven is the Belgrade Centre for the Integration of Youths (CIM) drop-in centre.
The first activities of the Centre, which was founded in 2004, were outreach and intervention – the activists would go out into the streets, find the children and offer them help. Since the opening of the drop-in centre in 2007, the Centre’s programme has expanded to include Public Sensitizing and Educational Development. One of the Centre’s main goals is to establish the contact between the children and the representatives of the social welfare, health and education system, with the special attention towards reintegration of children to their families.
Most importantly for children, the Centre activists do not have a routine which applies to everyone. Every child can say what they need from the Centre.
There is often a lack of respect and appreciation for social commitment in Central and Eastern European societies that not long ago experienced major political changes, social and economic crises, and violent conflicts. However, demonstrating social commitment is quite simple. It is about helping others that cannot help themselves. This is one of the main objectives of the ERSTE Foundation’s Social Affairs programme, which has given support to the Street Children project.
The aim of our Social Affairs programme is to contribute to shaping a society in Europe that enables equal participation for all people and in which these people are ready to take on responsibility and use it for the common good. “Europe” can only be successful if each one of us puts their intellectual, cultural, economic, and social capital to use for social integration.
Centar za integraciju mladih / Centre for Youth Integration
32 Stanoja Glavasa Street
11000 Belgrade, Serbia
