The rights of the elderly The rights of the refugees Quality of life in the Busije settlement Status of the unemployed people Position of the civil sector in the society

Rights of the elderly people
 

Lastavica is member of HumanaS, national network of organisations that work with older people. Intensive work has been done to promote the activities of the network, to produce website data base, presentation of NGOs involved in provisioning for the older people.
Lastavica organised national multistakeholder meeting of the actors that work with the older people. The meeting was organised together with NGO Viktoria and supported by HAI. Both governmental and civil sectors fully participated and presented their activities and viewpoints regarding National Ageing Strategy adopted in 2006. Additional meeting was organised in Kragujevac with representatives of the older people in order to share with them the content of National Aging Strategy. Idea of self-help groups was promoted and gender issue was explored.
Finally, the report on monitoring of the implementation of Madrid International Plan of action on aging (MIPAA) after 5 years was completed and prepared for publishing. The learning aspect of this activity was significant, since an important monitoring tool was tested and established in this way.
 

Rights of the refugees
 

Refugee association Busije was mostly involved in lobby and advocacy activities regarding refugee people’s rights. Representatives of RA Busije participated at number of meetings, round tables and conferences in order to obtain relevant information regarding target group and to lobby for its rights:
One of the most important was the meeting in February 2006, with President of Serbia, Boris Tadic, and representatives of a few other refugee associations in Serbia, in order to discuss the advancement of the refugee position. Communication with Dragisa Dabetic, Commissioner for Refugees of Serbia is organised on regular basis.
Partnerships and networking with other refugee organisations is strengthening in joined efforts to advance the refugee position. Some of the close partners and associates are Serbian Democratic Forum, Amity, Democratic Initiative for Knin, Refugee associations “Suza, “Demokratska inicijativa Knin” and other RA in Belgrade.
RA Busije representatives participated at number of round tables, presentations and public events organised in order to for example mark the World refugee day, or inform on the refugee tenant rights, access to employment market etc.
 

Rights of the unemployed
 

As a part of the project “Active in job searching” donated by EAR, Lastavica was involved in regular communication with national and city representatives of National Employment Service (NES). As part of this cooperation we have signed Memorandum of cooperation with this institution. As and example of good practice in work with unemployed women, Lastavica activities were presented on the meeting “Gender equity on employment market, Activities of NES”.
 

Quality of life in Busije settlement - lobbing or infrastructure institutions and local authorities
 

Regular meetings with public service representatives were organized, in order to increase quality of life in the community through improving physical infrastructure: Direction for Belgrade Electricity (street lightning issue); Direction for Belgrade Roads and Secretariat for traffic (asphalt issue); Belgrade Institute for Urbanism, Committee for definition of the street names (plan to urbanize Busije) and Belgrade Water and Sewerage System (legal registration of Busije water consumers).
Cooperation with local institutions is on regular base, implemented directly through joint activities with Centre for Social work and Health Centre in Community Center Busije
 

NGO position in the society
 

Lastavica participated at conference “From 3rd place to 3rd sector” organized by the ProConcept. This expert NGO works on evaluation and standardization in NGO sector in Serbia. Lastavica was evaluated among 90 selected NGOs in Serbia. We had short presentation during conference – as an example of good practice in the area of self sustainability for some of the programs of the organization (catering).
During June 2006 we participated on Conference “Civicus”, in Belgrade, where results from international research about non-profit sector in Serbia were presented.
During September we were also involved in research organized by UNDP about socially responsible business and Lastavica was used as an example of good practice.