ASSOCIATION FOR REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND BABYLON CENTER IN KRIVA PALANKA PROJECT

Internally Displaced are not Forgotten

In the past few months, there was a great number of organizations who looked after the internally displaced. Their activities were also various – from humanitarian aid distribution, housing to psycho-social help. One of these projects called “The internally displaced –our reality” was realized by the Association for Regional Development from Kriva Palanka and implemented by the Babylon center. The United Nations Development Program-UNDP has financed the project, which started in November last year and terminates on 10 January 2002. It included about 110 internally displaced people from the regions of Tetovo, Kumanovo and Skopje.

The project had a positive influence on the internally displaced staying in Kriva Palanka mental health, reducing the risks occurring within this group, organizing training for facilitating the displaced, organizing creative and voluntary activities and encouraging the feeling of being useful, as well as adjusting to the living conditions in the new surrounding, reducing the stress, better understanding of their problems in the community which will finally result in reducing the risk of conflicts and asocial behavior.

During the project’s realization, several debates took place on which the internally displaced discussed their problems and needs and there was also a meeting with a psychologist. In order to distract their thoughts about being displaced, 30 women and girls were sent on a sewing and tailoring course for designing scarves and hats, and some of them were engaged in preparing food for the children at the Babylon Center. Several meetings with the host families providing shelter for the displaced were organized, too. Medical experts in different fields had lectures concerning the hygiene, sexually transmitted diseases and the displaced people’s health in general.

G. Shabani.