Simplifying bureaucracy may save lives. A story from Serbia.
The story you are about to read was written by Radomir Brkić, a 14 years old boy living with his grandmother in Veliki Crljeni, a small village one hour drive south from Belgrade. At the time when he wrote this letter, Radomir was living with his unemployed grandmother in a house affected by flooding in 2014. His story won the first prize of a storytelling contest organised in Serbia by Open Club as part of an advocacy initiative for simplifying the burdensome bureaucracy regulating child protection systems in our area. The initiative was part of the project Young with a Voice financed by the European Commission.
MY CHILDHOOD
I was born in Valjevo on 10th of May 2001 and I grew up in my family in the first year of my life. I was very young but I can still recall how my father and his grandmother were fighting with my mother. One day my father has beaten my mother. I started to cry and I told my mother to leave the hose where we were living and go to her mother, my grandmother Dragica. We left our home and went to Veliki Crljeni to live with my grandma, and our lives were fine for the next three years. But after my third birthday my grandpa died in car accident, and after that moment things only got worse. My mother started to neglect me, but my grandma was always there, fighting for me like lion. After a while, my mother got remarried and left the house, so I stayed to live with my grandmother.
First day of school has come and all children were accompanied by their parents, but I was there with my grandma. I was feeling sad and it hurt badly that my parents were not there for me. Days and years have passed and nobody but my grandma was coming to school to pick me up. I was looking at other kids buying things I could never could afford. My grandma worked in other people’s houses and on their fields to earn for our living as she did not have a steady job. But each time she earned some money, she bought me whatever I wanted.
We were struggling somehow, but then great floods happened on May 15th 2014. During the floods our furniture was destroyed and we lost everything we had, our clothes… After that disaster it got worse, because my grandma couldn’t find any job in the village. But I am grateful to all the good people who have helped us after the floods. They provided us with everything necessary so that we could continue to live in our small house. Because of the people and my grandmas’ hard efforts we now have all the stuff in our house and we can live a normal life.
I then realized that I don’t know what I would be doing without my grandma, since everything I have is because of her. As time passes by, I am more and more afraid to lose my grandmother, since she has to work because of me and she is old and her health is not well. But then she tells me that nothing is hard for her when she sees me smiling.
I’m writing this story during the day, because we don’t have electricity and when the night comes, we can’t turn on the lights, or TV… I can’t even study for school.
Radomir Brkić
Following the media attention brought by our partner and the involvement of the Serbian Ministry of Social Policy Aleksandar Vulin, Radomir’s life story has changed. His flooded house was rebuilt and refurnished and the grandmother obtain the custody. Radomir’s home has electricity and he can use a computer. But Radomir’s case is not the only one of this nature — the social workers mission to find legal mechanisms of helping families in need is hampered by the big amount of paperwork involved in the process. Amendments to the Law on Social Protection are expected this year, in order to relieve the social worker from the paperwork and the issuance of endless series of endorsements. More information about the child protection status in Serbia here.
