Parents and children socialized in a school in Pirot

Pirot, 31 October 2018 – Within the activity “Parents at school desks”, various recreational and educational activities were organized in the primary school “Dusan Radovic” for the local population of Pirot and migrants currently staying in this city.

In the new, arranged and equipped space of the school gymnasium of the primary school “Dusan Radovic”, people of Pirot and Iran tested their skills in different sport disciplines and fought hard for their teams. During the recreation, fathers and children exchanged their sport and life experiences, and like real professionals, congratulated each other at the end of the match and continued socializing outside the court.

Assistant Mayor of the City of Pirot Bojan Randjelovic stressed the importance of joint activities of migrants and the local population:

“This is a great way to break down all the prejudices that are still present in some places and that create a gap between migrants and Serbian citizens. There should be more activities like this in order to create a synergy of people living in one place and to overcome all the obstacles that come with differences in the language, tradition, history and culture. We are glad that Pirot managed to respond efficiently to migration challenges and that we are in the position to say that we have such activities that connect people and create unity. The European Union has rewarded the citizens of Pirot with 120.000 euros which were used to maintain the quality of education, health care and social protection services.“

While children were having fun, parents were exchanging the experiences on the ways to overcome parents’ concerns and difficulties that come with parenting, no matter where you are. Through expert counselling from the workers of the Centre for Social Work in Pirot, parents received useful information and advice on how to reach compromises which will keep the family together and won’t hurt any family member.

As always, the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration provides great support in activities involving migrants. This time, the coordinator for the south of Serbia, Slobodan Savovic, joined the activity of social networking and said that it is extremely important that such activities are organized in the local communities across Serbia.

“With the support from the European Union we managed to improve the accommodation conditions, the quality of life of refugees and migrants in this district, as well as to contribute to higher inclusion of migrants in the local community. Today’s event also shows that. There are currently 166 migrants in the Reception Centre in Pirot, and 42 of them are children.”

Including the migrant children in the education system is one of the priorities of our country’s migration policy, which was supported in practice by the primary school “Dusan Radovic” through educational work with more than 30 migrant children in previous several years. Natasa Brankovic, the principal of the school “Dusan Radovic”, expressed her satisfaction with the donation and reconstruction of the school gymnasium, but also with the activities organized within the EU Support to Municipalities Hosting Migrants.

“In every child’s life, school should be a second and extended family. Our mission is to achieve this and be a second home for all our students”.

The goal of the activity “Parents at school desks” was to gather parents and children in one place and for that place to be the school, as the primary group of every society, as the place where children grow up, connect, share pleasant and unpleasant moments and where they acquire the experiences they carry with them throughout their lives.