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Friendship grows in small Serbian village
By Maggie I. Jaruzel
Lolita Lakatoš and Danijela Zelenka come from different cultural backgrounds, but the two girls have developed a strong bond of friendship through their shared time in an afterschool program. And each has improved her performance in the classroom.
Both results are exactly what the Balkan Community Initiatives Fund (BCIF) of Belgrade, Serbia, had hoped for when it provided support to a non-governmental organization (NGO) that oversees community outreach efforts in the small Serbian village of Mali Idjos.
“These girls are part of a wider program that reminds community members and decisionmakers about the number of children and young people who do not have equal access to the regular education system because of their ethnic background and poverty,” said AleksandraVesic, executive director of BCIF.
Through its Active Communities small grants program, BCIF provides support to NGOs working for positive change at the local level in Serbia and Montenegro, including projects that address ethnic conflict and inequities.
One of these is the afterschool program operated by the Women’s Forum in the Serbian province of Vojvodina.
In this region and elsewhere, there have been ethnic and religious conflicts. Combined with poverty, this often results in unequal access to a quality, public-school education for children from non-Serbian heritages, Vesic said.
Nine-year-old Lolita’s family is Roma, while 10-year-old Danijela’s family is Hungarian. But both girls have received help with their school work from Women’s Forum staff and volunteers so they could catch up academically.
The Women’s Forum also works with students’ parents, and hosts town hall meetings so that children and adults of different heritages can interact socially. Often, after people spend time getting to know one another, long-held cultural stereotypes are shattered.
“Working together to solve issues of common concern helps build relationships between people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds in this ethnically mixed community,” Vesic said.