To the elderly in Pazova with love

''After many years I have made new friends. We keep each other company and we get support from professionals. I can feel that society has started to take care of us and that we are not alone any longer. Our time is filled now!” With these words a participant in the project “To the Elderly with Love” describes the program in which she participates with her neighbours and fellow citizens older than 65. The project “To the Elderly with Love” is implemented by the Center for Social Work in Stara Pazova, and is financed by the Social Innovation Fund. This program is just one of the good examples of the implementation of new principles in social welfare as envisaged in the Poverty Reduction Strategy paper for Serbia: a decrease in the number of beneficiaries in institutions for social protection (deinstitutionalization), and support to municipalities in taking responsibility and developing and implementing social policy at the local level (decentralization).

The aim of the project “To the Elderly with Love” is to enhance the quality of life of the elderly in Stara Pazova. The project helps elderly citizens to exercise their rights to social welfare and health protection, and it stimulates the elderly to actively participate in the life of local community in line with their abilities. Old people are often very lonely and neglected, and wider community does not have sufficient insight into their problems and needs. For this reason the goal of the project “To the Elderly with Love” is to present the needs of old people to a wider public, do away with community prejudices and motivate citizens to become part of the support network for the elderly.

Various public services and their experts participate in the project. Social workers, psychologists and doctors provide professional help, inform and advise the elderly on a variety of problems and needs, and when needed provide immediate assistance to the elderly in their homes. A number of volunteers from municipal pensioners associations were trained, a self-help group was formed and continuous efforts are made to build a network for assisting the elderly at the territory of the Stara Pazova municipality.

An important part of the project referred to raising awarenes of the community by means of public debates which pointed to specific needs of the elderly, presented the results of the project and presented the strategy for the development of care for the elderly in local communities.

The project “To the Elderly with Love” in various ways included 1417 local and displaced people (refugees, internally displaced persons) older than 65, members of all nationalities (Serbs, Slovaks, Croats, Roma) that live in Stara Pazova. By getting informed, around 13,000 people benefited indirectly from the project activities.

The participation of the Municipality of Stara Pazova contributed greatly to the continuation of the project. Participation of the Municipality and sucessful results during the project implementation resulted in the decision of the local self-government to finance assistance in beneficiaries' homes from the local budget. In this way, two recently unemployed persons got permanent employment.

Social Innovation Fund (SIF) is a program of the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Policy that represents one of the social welfare reform mechanisms through which recommendations laid out in the Poverty Reduction Strategy are implemented. So far, SIF has financed 88 projects in 59 Serbian municipalities that enhance the quality of social welfare for the most vulnerable population in Serbia, with support from the Government of the Republic of Serbia and international donors. SIF activities are supported by the Government of the Republic of Serbia, European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR), UN Development Program (UNDP) and the Kingdom of Norway.