- NDF team visited the preschool “Galeb” and its kindergarten in Petrovac on the Mlava. Because of the floods in Serbia in May, the school is closed and it’s the only nursery in Petrovac. 350 children went in that school before the floods. Water stayed for almost a week in the building destroying the floors and seeping into the walls. Before the renovation, the school needs to be dried. People who work in school did their best but couldn’t do more. The Novak Djokovic Foundation is working to help the renovation of this school in cooperation with the municipality to help children to go back to school. More infos and photos here
- On May 22, Ruznica Vina held a fundraising event. 40 Serbian winemakers donated their wine and RDS 315,000 were raised. All the money will go to the Novak Djokovic Foundation to renovate schools and kindergartens destroyed by the Serbian floods. More infos here
- Book publisher JRJ My Publisher and Novak Djokovic Foundation have started a successful and long term cooperation with a goal to enrich the stay of the children in kindergartens and schools through a donation in books. The book publisher is going to donate a total amount of 300.000 dinars of books for children. Source
- After giving 300 books to primary schools in Ljig, Gruza and Sirca, the Novak Djokovic Foundation donated 300 other books to schools in Vladicin Han, Merosina and Baljevac. NDF keeps showing how books are important in children development. More infos here
- Family Outreach Worker Update : The service is provided by four children’s centres in the four main cities in Serbia (Belgrade, Nis, Novi Sad and Kragujevac). These are four children’s-homes-in-transformation, which means that they are residential institutions that now have less and less children in residential care and are using freed staff and infra-structural resources to provide services for families in the community. There are a total of 16 family outreach workers out of which 8 (2 in each city) are full-time and financed through the project. Families are referred to them by the city Centres for Social Work where social workers carry out assessments and decide which families are suitable for this type of support. Families that are referred to this service are those struggling with multiple types of deprivation and where there is a risk of placement of the children in care. These families are most often living at the edge of poverty, but are also characterized with other vulnerabilities such as disability, mental health challenges, substance abuse, conflicts between family members impacting on child wellbeing, domestic violence etc. Project funds include modest financial support to address immediate concerns that are a results of material poverty ($300 per family); this can be e.g. purchase of nappies, medication, coverage of monthly transport costs, school books, clothing etc. A joint plan is signed, as sign of commitment to making progress. Each family member can commit to taking over a bit more responsibility in order to achieve a certain goal which is in the best interest of the child. The family outreach workers help include family members in the community. This may be about facilitating enrolment of a toddler in pre-school, mediating to ensure a teenager does not drop out of school, enrolling a parent to an alcohol treatment programme or another family member to seek medical advice. Here the family outreach worker is a mediator/bridge between the family and community.The first families were referred to the service at the end of September 2013. On the basis of reports of 4 service providers, 131 families were referred to the service by end March 2014. For less than 10% (11 families) the ‘cooperation’ was terminated, due to the fact that the families could not make the necessary commitment to receiving the service. The service is provided to 120 families out of which 4 interventions have been successfully finalized – meaning that 116 are on-going. In one case the service provision was terminated due to a concern regarding child neglect which was reported to the Centre for Social Work (CSW) that has intervened in line with their statutory obligations. The service has included 291 child and 189 parents/adult family members. In total, 1711 visits have taken place to family homes or to services/places of relevance for families. Source
- Gigatron has recognised the importance of the projects and programmes on which NDF works every day and has decided to contribute to the greater efficiency of team-members by donating desktop computers and tablets for NDF team members. Desktop computers and tablets donated by Gigatron will enable the Foundation to implement all activities more promptly and with greater quality, thereby improving the results in the field of humanitarian work. Source
Jelena Djokovic Fan Club 