Sharing Good Practice in Serbia...
25/01/2012
DISC demonstrates its commitment to working with others in Europe. Chief Executive Mark Weeding, Independent Living Project Leader Dawn Newsome, alongside partner agency worker Adam from Hope Housing, Bradford visit Serbia once again in a bid to highlight and address the massive issues of homelessness in Belgrade.
Working in partnership with the Housing Centre, who have secured European funding, the main objectives for the trip was to ‘overcome discrimination of homeless people in Serbia through active civil society participation in research, awareness raising, advocacy and policy shaping’.
DISC was able to share good practice with the team and to explore how some of the lessons we have learnt in the UK may be applied in other less well resourced countries.
Mark is passionate about this and wanted to see for himself the situation in Belgrade and to help support the hundreds of people affected. “There are some really great organizations in Serbia, prepared to take on what are hugely daunting problems. It’s a privilege to work alongside and support such inspiring people. Some of the thing I have seen are profoundly shocking, the results of years of war, recession and social chaos. As is so often the case the stereotype we have of Serbians, is far from what I have experienced of a friendly, hospitable people deeply concerned about the social injustices that have emerged in their society.”
A short questionnaire has been developed to help support workers to gather information from homeless individuals in Belgrade. We started with people who are housed in the homeless shelter in Belgrade and some of the the Roma communities who make up a significant proportion of the homeless in the city.
Visiting the only homeless shelter in Belgrade, which has capacity to house 80 people, there were 120 homeless people staying at the shelter. We were told that during the winter period the numbers will increase and people will sleep on mattresses on corridors and in communal areas.
“The shelter accommodated able bodied people, elderly, disabled, mentally unwell people, people with HIV, Hepatitis C, it was a really sad place to visit; there were people with serious disabilities, people who had no lower limbs and chronically sick elderly people; many were not able to leave there beds. They will never get the opportunity to go in to the garden or leave their tiny room which they shared with another 26 people many sleeping in bunk beds all crammed in next to one another. It was a very upsetting experience and makes you appreciate how lucky we are to have the support systems in place that we do in the UK” said support worker Dawn.
The group also visited a Roma camp just on the out skirts of the city centre which had around 400 people living on a disused piece of land under a railway bridge. People there live in make shift houses made from anything that they can find, they have no running water and no electricity. They survive from collecting plastic bottles, cardboard and other materials that they are able to sell on.
Dawn said of the visit to one of the homes there, “It’s amazing how people survive on next to nothing. The lady whose home it was had a bed in the corner and a small area where she was able to cook, there was no lighting, no electricity and the whole place was moving in the wind. I was also introduced to a young woman who had 6 children living with her I was told that she suffered domestic violence from the children’s father and was unable to escape this as she had nowhere else to go.”
The government do very little to address the issues of Homelessness in Serbia particularly with the roman community’s, there are camps like this one all over the city.
Mark was invited to take part in a media conference whilst in Belgrade; he spoke about DISC’s involvement with the project and how by working in partnership new strategies can be implemented and hopefully raise public and Government awareness of the need for suitable affordable housing in Serbia.
Later this year The Housing Centre in Belgrade will hold a conference where findings will be presented to the Government and media. DISC will also be attending this conference.
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