Novi Sad, 23 August 2022

Dear friends,

At the end of July, the Centre launched the new  crowd funding campaign. This time, the Reconstruction Women’s Fund has given us its online platform (with the indication “donations for the Centre Living Upright” in the field for the purpose of payment or in RSD on the Centre Bank account for donations  340-11001286-31 )  It lasts until September 30,  RSD 483.000 (€4031)  should be raised during the campaign. The amount RSD 370.000 (€ 3153) for June and July costs should actually be raised till 31 August and RSD 335.000 (€ 2855) more until 30 September in order to cover the assistance outside Novi Sad and the costs of annual leave allowance to personal assistants in Novi Sad. The line City administration responded on 17 August that it had started working on the solution.

We expect the City to respond by the end of September, at least the full coverage of the service for 2 persons will be resolved. They need the assistance of 2 persons for each transfer to/from the wheel chair and  24 hours assistance a day divided in 2 or 3 shifts, and the City covers 24 hours x number of days in a month, so  we have a minimum lack of RSD 30,000 (€ 256 per month), and when the month has 184 working hours, the shortfall is for 168 hours per person, and the City does not cover holiday days and weekends to all 28 assistants the Centre employs and people get paid less than they should be for 9 days on average on an annual basis, which is why rarely anyone stays for more than a year on this job.

I hope that by the end of September a way will be found to cover the costs of all labor rights starting with January 2023 or earlier.

 Donating now means more than at the beginning of 2014 when we did not know if we would have it at all because 48 persons are currently using or providing the assistance organized by the Centre, bearing in mind the shortfall of RSD 700,000 for all 3 items only for June-August 2022. on the existing amount of RSD 14.5 million (€ 123.582 for the period 2011-May 2022, and the blockade of accounts, which, except for the Reconstruction Women’s Fund, because since 2016 it supports the process and is aware of what has been achieved and why all of this is a prize, we do not have access to donors except the business sector, and there’re so many issues endangering to life that the system does not yet recognize, for which people raise funds, and the biggest part of the business sector is going through the impossible situations in order to survive, so that any appeal for donations after so many years for the same purpose is an ethical challenge, but we must continue raising the funds until everything is resolved in Novi Sad, where 90% of the work is done within the current state regulations. Bearing in mind of what the standards of the international movement for independent living include (for a reason) and domestic regulations (which in value terms needs harmonization with international standards and a real understanding of the purpose of support for independent living) we are physically and financially exhausted because the process from the first meeting with the City to provide public funding to the last week announcing the solution for the last unresolved segment lasts 18 years and 4 months.

I’m deeply sorry for sending this appeal,

Yours sincerely,

Milica Mima Ružičić-Novković, President