The International Women’s Club of Belgrade, through the activities of the Charity Committee, endeavours to provide support to community groups and NGOs in order to try to meet some of the needs of vulnerable populations including people with disabilities, women, children, the elderly, internally displaced and ethnic minorities.
The International Women’s Club has members from over forty countries, linked to the diplomatic and international business communities and the Christmas Bazaar is the main funding event for the IWC supported community projects. In 2011 the IWC raised one hundred thousand euros and all of the funds have been allocated to support ten projects.
The Charity Group is a non-profit, all volunteer group of the IWC members with many years experience, both professional and personal who work to ensure that all of the funds raised at the Christmas Bazaar are donated to worthy projects and used in a way to ensure tangible change to vulnerable groups within the local community.
Thirteen projects were approved in 2013 and provide assistance to:
- Bread of Life helps to increase the ability of very impoverished, multi impaired elderly people to obtain needed services, improve their functioning and enable them to live as independently as possible. BOL recruits, trains and develops a network of home carers.
- International Aid Network is working to overcome female poverty by providing courses to enable vulnerable women to access employment. Courses are provided to 30 women living in sheltered care.
- The Creative Educational Centre KEC provides support for young adults with special needs to help them lead fulfilling lives in the community. KEC organizes creative, educational workshops, day programmes, work placements and respite care.
- The Royal Belgrade Club has been running a project for a couple of years with young people with Down’s Syndrome and supported by the Ministry of Youth and Sport. These young people participate in the club activities and are actively involved in training which greatly improves their motoric skills and provides an improvement in their quality of social life.
- Amity is a local ngo set up to develop the rights of marginalized people and have a network of mobile teams supporting the most vulnerable from the refugee and displaced population.. The project “Keep them at Home” provides support to 500 children with disabilities in Central Serbia to include them in education, health and social protection and inclusion in local community life.
- Sports Managers Association - Life Values Project promotes the basic values of sport and fair play for children without parental care, provides integration and inclusion of those children into local sports activities and contributes to the improvement of sports managers, especially the work of amateur, voluntary and youth sports clubs in accordance with European models.
- Belgrade Acceuil Association provides assistance to the Zvecanska orphanage in Belgrade for play activities for young children and babies without parental care. They help with socialization and integration of the children into the local community, by providing outings and visit to the local kindergarten.
- Centre for Youth Integration provides a drop in centre in Belgrade for street children. It was set up three years ago and is open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and provides shelter, food and clothing for 430 children living on the streets. IWC provided funds to expand the capacity of the centre and provides assistance to allow a number of volunteers to escort pre-school children from their homes in the settlements to the local pre-school. All of these children are subsequently enrolled in first grade of the local schools.
- “Association of single mothers” in Nis organizes workshops for single parent families to provide support and education to single mothers with school going aged children, therefore by educating and empowering the single mother to better assist their own children. The project covers 150 single mothers and 40 children with special needs.
- “Savremena Deca” provides art classes to children without parental care living in institutions in Belgrade. 30 students from the Academy of Art provide classes at the weekends to 67 children in three institutions in Belgrade. The funds for this project were raised at the Christmas Tree Competition held in the Hyatt Hotel in December
- Civic Initiatives has been working since 1996 through many projects increasing the capacities of local ngos, strengthening civil society through youth projects and lately a project which involves students teaching literacy to adult Roma and other vulnerable adults. This project will increase the general level of literacy and their chance for social inclusion.
- Bitka za Bebe is a project promoted by B92 television in Belgrade to provide equipment assist gynecological and obstetric hospitals in Serbia. IWC provided a resuscitation table for Tirsova Children’s Hospital in Belgrade.
- Bitka za Bebe . IWC also purchased a delivery table and other equipment for the hospital in Pozeravac.