Although Ivanjica town is an administrative centre of the municipality, majority of the people work in agriculture and reside in remote, mountainous area. This means that for most the access to important services is limited, while for those most vulnerable it’s practically physically inaccessible.
There are currently close to 2,200 people with disabilities living in the municipality. Majority of the caretakers struggle to find resources for adequate care, while limited budgets of local institutions cannot respond to special needs. In such cases Civil Society Organisations (CSO) are invited to step in and bridge the service provision gap.
In Ivanjica, the Cerebral Palsy Association took on this task. Founded in 2002, and accredited by the Ministry of Labour, it has evolved into one of the main providers of social services in the municipality and beyond.
Through European PROGRES’s Civil Involvement Fund (CIF) the European Union (EU) and the Government of Switzerland have been supporting the since 2011 when a weekend support programme “Respite” was established enabling children with disabilities to spend two, activity-packed, days with round-the-clock care and supervision, while allowing their parents some well-earned rest.
“The Programme allowed the children to socialise with peers for the first time and it was not easy at first,” says Svetlana Glavinić, President of the Association remembering the numerous sleepless nights of the early days. Never the less she underlines that the results were worth the effort: “Nothing can match the joy of those children when they come to the Centre - they’re over the moon for it.”
In fact the results were such that, after the financial support from the donors ended, the Ministry of Labour took over funding the programme.
In 2012, the Association also received 9,000 Euros from the EU and Swiss Government to establish occupational therapy workshop for individuals with disabilities, giving the beneficiaries a chance to express themselves creatively through various artistic mediums.
Both of these services are performed in the Daily Centre “Sun” – a facility where a highly specialised, multidisciplinary staff offers a licenced day-care to 25 and speech therapy to 73 children referred from the municipal Health Centre.
The Centre also provides “personal assistants” – specialised staff who support beneficiaries in their daily activities. This practice was so successful that the Association is now a licenced provider of “personal assistants” trainings in Serbia. So far over 700 workshops took place across Serbia and contributed to the employment of dozens of people as personal assistants.
Most recently the Association decided to reach out to beneficiaries in the more remote areas. To achieve this in 2015 EU and the Swiss Government allocated 16,500 Euros not only for the purchase of a new vehicle, but also to train 18 unemployed individuals to become personal assistants, as well as to publish a manual dedicated to this service.
“Adequate transportation is crucial as we are now able to provide services to those children whose parents don’t even own a car, let alone a vehicle that is adapted for wheelchair users. This means that now more of our beneficiaries have access to services that will allow their social and intellectual development and will significantly contribute to their and their caretakers’ wellbeing,“ says Glavinić.
With new wheels secured, more is in store for Svetlana and her team – we just have to wait and see what the Ivanjica “Sun” will cast its shine on next.
