“What I like best is to draw, have a bath, and watch cartoons. I have already learned some Serbian and English too, as well as subtraction, addition, and multiplication. Sometimes I am confusing Cyrillic and Latin letters”, says ten year old Ahmet. She regularly visits the Day Care Centre for street children in Belgrade which, in the last ten years, has offered a shelter for more than one thousand children and adolescents between the age of five and 15. Meanwhile, more than 300 visit the centre regularly, amongst others to have a meal, get clean clothes, take a bath or to study.
Our fosterlings live in unhygienic settlements, their families are extremely poor and need even the youngest to make money on the streets. They have no access to running water and electricity, and their accommodations are only faintly reminiscent of habitable houses. When the children are at the Day Care Centre, they can drink clean water and eat warm meals, have room and time to study, and they can also play with the others children und develop their social skills.
We focus on three levels: To satisfy the children's basic needs like hunger, health or hygiene, to work on their education and integrating them into a wider social network. Our numerous volunteers and professional staff also provide support with acquiring documents to register the children at school or in the health system, and our outreach-workers are always looking to get more children and families to know the centre.
Jointly with the Centre for Youth Integration, we make possible for the children and adolescents, who otherwise would have to work on Belgrade’s streets, an age-appropriate life and accompany them on their way into a more self-determined future. Please help us support them!
