A three-member group, representing RARE project, from Slovakia visited Serbia’s Good Practice, the Recycling Eco Centre in Niš.

In the area of South Serbia, there have been several initiatives of business cooperatives of Roma. Their goals were to improve the situation and in the same time to solve problems of Roma population in this area. During the last four years, five cooperatives were established by Roma, one in Pirot, one in Doljevac, one in Surdulica and two in Niš.

„Amala” Recycling Eco Centre Niš

The association is registered for reuse of the classified materials and for disposal of non-hazardous waste. The visit confirmed that the process of sorting of waste has been started, but it struggles to survive. Due to the tough competition, large businesses can easily beat small competitors. Therefore, it would be good to increase the added value of the final product.

At the City Council meeting in Nis town, the city's main representatives - Deputy Mayor, members of the City Council, and heads of employment and business departments also took part.

The head of the meeting was the state secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of Serbia, Nenad Ivanisevic, who, arrived to Niš from Belgrade, to meet with the representatives of Slovak non-governmental organizations. The state secretary presented Serbia's policy focused on improvement of living conditions of Roma in Serbia.

He appreciated the foreign interest in solving the problems of  Roma community. He particularly emphasized the fact that this project is the first EU project in Serbia focused on Roma issue.

In a near future Slovak partners would like to jointly prepare a project proposal to implement a good practice-the self-help construction project-  in Serbia .The model of self-help house construction was successfully implemented in Slovakia. The project idea and the planned cooperation is the biggest success of the partner visit in the framework of a "good practices visit" of the RARE project.