Only 5 kilometers from the center of Skopje, in Shuto Orizari, there are our fellow citizens who do not have personal documents. Thus, they are outside the system and cannot exercise basic rights such as health care, social assistance, going to school. There are many children who are on the street.
The community in Shuto Orizari was particularly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Those fellow citizens of ours had no way of informing themselves about the dangers of Covid-19 and the ways in which they can protect themselves and their families.
Some do not have televisions, others cannot read or only know Romani. That’s why we established contact points in the field to inform and protect them in a simple and understandable way. The Day-care Center for Street Children visited 38 families and tirelessly educated, instructed to protect their health and prevent the spread of the pandemic. In the center, children left the street and became literate, acquired healthy hygiene habits and ate healthy food.
Immediate action and support were needed – leaflets in Romani language and with a pictorial representation were distributed so that no one was left without information about Covid-19 and how the Day-care Center for Street Children can help. The business community supported it with healthy products, vitamins and hygiene products, masks and an educational excursion for the children.
Through a series of consultations and mentoring sessions, the Center created access to companies for initiating, organizing and maintaining contact with companies, in the direction of encouraging the sustainability of the Center itself. This resulted in the support of a company that regularly donated to the Center with necessary products for the children and their families.
A day in the Day-care Center for Street Children…
Street children have to manage. They collect waste, help… beg, roam. The Day-care Center for Street Children is the only shelter where they can be taken care of regularly. The Center’s team ensures that they receive complete care: food, basic personal hygiene, inclusion in daily activities of learning and literacy, free activities, in a beautiful, warm atmosphere, where children develop socio-emotional, and also acquire healthy habits by encouraging the habits of maintaining hygiene. Something that is necessary for every child to develop and have all the same opportunities for growth and development as their peers. When this opportunity is given, children gain self-confidence, they start going to school. Some of them have become independent citizens who earn for a normal life.
As a result of the initiative, 72 children between the ages of 4 and 15 learned how, by acquiring the right habits, they can protect their own health. They prepared for school, and families were helped to exercise their right to health and social insurance. They involved 100 families, but the effect is much greater, because the initiative itself plays a strong transformative role in the lives of children and families: the majority of children in the Day-care Center for Street Children have finished school, have recognized their potential and full of self-confidence they move forward confidently in life, according to their wishes and plans.
Targeted Goals:
Inspirational stories
Nermin Ismaili was a street child until he was registered by the expert team of the Day-care Center for Street Children, and provided his basic, daily needs by begging and collecting waste, without health insurance because he was not registered in the birth register and had no right to financial assistance.
[Nermin], like any child of his age, needs to make friends, have clean clothes, learn new things, have someone take care of him and serve as an example. After admission to the Center, he became a first grader. In order to admit him to school even though he did not have health insurance, the doctor from Shuto Orizari Polyclinic from the children’s immunization department gave him the appropriate vaccines, and the dentist and the ophthalmologist examined him. With time and intense dedicated work, [Nermin] began to take care of his own hygiene and health. He wore a mask, disinfected his hands, socialized but kept his distance, as taught by the teachers from the Day-care Center and the school.
Mina – one of the children in the Day-care Center for Street Children opened her heart and told her story, and the writer Katerina Shoshko transformed her confession into a story that is testimony to the growth and great importance of the Day-care Center for Street Children.
“Now, at the age of twenty-three, when I look back, I realize that I was very lucky. I finished high school and today I work as a saleswoman and earn my salary honestly. I have one child whom I love immensely and I am raising him to follow the right path. The Day-caer Center for Street Children is a place that changed my life completely and turned me into what I am today – an educated, self-reliant and independent young woman.”
The story of [Semiha], another child from the Center, is a further testimony of the change and the new path in her life. After graduating from “Shaip Yusuf” secondary school, she had the support of the academic environment and those involved in the initiative so that she could realize her wish – be a law student. Although she did not succeed in her intention, she continued to work in a local fast food restaurant, owned by the representative of the private business sector that provides support to the local community. The plans for her future include the possibility that in the future, if an opportunity and a place opens up, she will hopefully join the team of the Day-care Center for Street Children to continue her success story right at the Center.
