Dear friend,
For the first time, we will share with you a letter that we received from Bojana, the girl that lost her home during floods in 2014 in Serbia. When I was calling her a few days ago, she said she will send us a letter of gratitude. It was seven p.m. and she was still working on a field collecting raspberry, doing probably one of the most difficult work you can do in the field. You are almost all the time on your knees, or in a squat, and you are picking something so small, very gentle not to flatten small raspberries. I didn`t know that. Bojana told me. This is a letter that Bojana sent:
“Dear Pomoc deci,
You may remember, the floods started on May 14, 2014. The rain was falling and carried everything before it. I was 9 years old, while my sisters were 8 and 6 and the youngest one and a half years old.
We were scared. Our father and grandfather barely saved us from the house that we lost in the floods the same day. The water was tearing everything apart and caused landslides. One day life was normal and the next we were left with nothing. It all happened when I was little, but it was difficult and those images remain in us today. The thought of it makes us cry. It's so hard to stay without your home and everything in it.
The scholarship that I was receiving all these years meant a lot to us, and not only to me. We live with a father who is very ill. Every dinar is precious to us, because dad has to pay for medicine, then for every check-up, and they are so often. It was very important for me, because I could also buy things I need for school from the scholarship. In the summer, I go to collect raspberries to earn extra money for my younger sisters and myself. I am excellent at school and just several days ago finished high school. This is my diploma. My next step is to plan how to enroll in a University in Sabac city where I can continue to study economics.
If you stay with me, it would be so much easier for me, knowing that I really have a chance to make this plan into reality.
Yours Bojana”
This letter made us sad and happy at the same time. We will really do our best to support Bojana and many other young people to take a path to education and life that they wish to have. Even small your donation can change someone’s life, and when it is a life of a young person, it is investment in the future, for sure.
Yours,
Pomoc deci
Links:
Dear friend,
Hope you are enjoying your time and that our story will make you proud as it makes us proud.
When calling Nemanja, I was wondering how he was doing now. Nine years passed, and he is now grown up, maybe a student.
Nemanja was in the seventh grade of the elementary school when the floods and landslides hit his town Krupanj. Back then, he was an excellent pupil and a talented young football player, but his life had to stop to help his parents rebuild the house, life and get back on their feet. The household was destroyed, all the crops, and every animal they had.
When the water came in, his mother and grandmother were with him and his sister. The shock was great for children, but for grownups also.
At that time, they had no money for anything other than the essentials. When Nemanja received the scholarship, he was thrilled. Parents let him keep his scholarship and never doubt him. Soon, Nemanja was back on the football field, started to practice karate, winning medals, and continued his great work at school. Back then he was wondering how nice it would be if the people who have given him the money that goes into his scholarship can see his medals, and how grateful he is.
And yes, Nemanja is a student now. Just like his older sister, he enrolled at Faculty of Mathematics in Belgrade, one of the most respectable in Serbia. He lives in a student dormitory, going to lessons, studying, and in his leisure time watching films and series. Luckily, the flood is now forgotten and thanks to the good people that supported him all along, Nemanja is looking at a bright future.
As a successful third year student, he is almost there – to be his own man. He is looking forward to next and last year of studying and is very satisfied with his life now. Let`s be with Nemanja and support this young scientist to fulfill his enormous potential.
Links:
It has been four years since we last reported on Djurdjina, one of the children who lost everything in the floods that caused landslides, took away homes and even lives in Serbia eight years ago.
Just two weeks after her 11th birthday, Djurdjina’s father saved her literally seconds before their house collapsed and was swept away together with everything the family had had. It took years for this girl to overcome trauma and nightmares that would wake her up in the middle of the night thinking that the water was drowning them all over again...
And if this was not terrible enough, her father got injured at work and became an invalid. The only income for the whole family was coming from temporary jobs her mother could find.
At the time, we provided this girl with the scholarship from the donations you made to help children victims of the floods. Other donors provided a small prefabricated house for her and her family on the other side of a small town of Krupanj in the Western Serbia. All this helped both Djurdjina and her family to start rebuilding their lives.
Four years ago, Djurdjina was a proud teenager who graduated from the elementary school with all honours, who has received half a dozen Diplomas for excellence and awards at the knowledge competitions in different subjects and, above all, the Vuk Karadzic Award - a highest State Award for the extraordinary achievements in all educational areas.
Today, she is a thoroughly delighted first-year student of the prestigious Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering in Belgrade! She kept her perfect educational grades throughout High School, graduated with honours and passed the entrance exams. She enrolled into the course she had always wanted – Road Traffic Engineer.
“I’m happy beyond words”, she told us right after getting her student card. Her excellent grades enabled her also to secure a place in the Student’s camp and dormitory so that she can regularly attend all lectures.
“Four years ago, I thought that I couldn’t continue my education beyond Elementary school because we couldn’t afford even the costs for monthly bus ticket to the school in the town from our village, let alone textbooks and all the other things needed. You promised to help me financially if I would keep my good grades. So many nights, I would wake up abruptly from nightmares that the rain would drown us and take our new home away, or that you would stop helping me go to school… I love studying, I always wanted to be a Traffic Engineer, design roads that could connect people, and now, when my dream has come true and I am here studying to become Traffic Engineer, I cannot thank you enough. Please, let all these people who have been giving their money for my studies, that I promise to be the best student I can”, all on one breath Djurdjina says.
And we sincerely thank all of you who have donated for supporting children victims of those worst floods in more than 100 years.
Please, keep helping us help these children. By spreading a word about our work, by donating whatever amount, by organising any fundraiser…
With sincere gratitude,
Yours,
Pomoc deci team
Links:
“Sometimes, this school meal that we know we will get if we go to school, makes all the difference”, comments Zepa, a 13-year-old girl from Kragujevac. “When Halil and I tell the youngest, our Jusuf, that he needs to get up in the morning on time so that we can all go to school together, ‘you’ll miss the school meal if you are late’ makes him jump out of bed immediately”, she says with a smile. And this would have been just a cute, internal joke, if it would not have uncovered the sad truth. On many days, this school meal is the only cooked meal these three children get in a day. The family of four children and Dad as a single parent, lost their house in the floods seven years ago in Western Serbia and moved to Kragujevac, only to have their new setting flooded completely last Summer. All the electric appliances were lost again. Clothes and shoes were all soaked with muddy water. The walls were completely wet at least a metre high from the ground. And in the middle of pandemic, there was little they could do, but wait for the walls to dry and ask for help with basic necessities. Only the father works and the eldest daughter, who is just 18 years old, is helping as much as she can by sawing things for neighbours and friends and maintaining the household.
With your generous donations, we managed to help them get the textbooks and school supplies last September and to organise a school meal for all three children who go to school for the whole school year. Zepa is currently in the 6th grade, Jusuf in the second grade and the youngest in the mandatory preparatory preschool.
We would like to help them get also the textbooks and school material next school year, help them with secure school meals in the next school year, so that they can concentrate on learning and completing mandatory education successfully.
Please, consider telling your friends about our efforts, if you can, please donate or just mention our project to anyone you can.
With Gratitude,
Yours,
Pomoc deci team
Links:
A 13-year-old Andrija, was one of the children who we helped when he and his family lost their house in the landslide caused by the extreme floods seven years ago. At the time he was preparing to start going to school and his family had no money to buy even the basics that every first-grader needs. We started this campaign on GlobalGiving platform hoping that with your donations we could help Andrija and other children in the flooded areas.
With your donations, we have managed to support Andrija continuously these seven years, which have been continuously challenging for his family. They have faced repeated floods that destroyed the produce his family has been trying to grow as well as unemployment of one or both parents at times.
Although last two years have been difficult for all of us, as well as for schools and students, Andrija has managed to keep excellent grades and now he is in the seventh grade, already thinking which secondary school he would like to enrol next year when he graduates from the elementary school.
Recently, Andrija has gotten really interested in handball, with the scholarship he receives, he could pay the membership fee at a local club and start regularly training. He has proven to be talented and hard-working which has made him very successful at this sport. He has made it to the first team in his age group, has been competing and as his mom puts it: “He has found himself”.
All of this has been made possible because of your generosity and continuous support to our project. We are thanking you from the bottom of our heats for this!
We will be extremely grateful if you would consider donating to this project of ours during this festive season, in particular, if you would decide to start a monthly recurring donation. For a 4-month recurring donation whatever you give as the initial amount up to 200 USD, GlobalGiving Foundation has decided to match up. And if you start it today or in the next two days, we will receive a 200% match on your first donation.
On behalf of Andrija and 125 other children that have been assisting through this project, we wish you happy holidays and all the very best in the New Year!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
Make a monthly donation & get 
