MFS-EMMAUS EASTERN BOSNIA WHERE THE HEART IS PAINFUL AND STILL BEATS
We continuously take care for the people of Podrinje, on a territory of Eastern Bosnia, which seemed as a thorn in the eyes for many, so they tried to pull it out. We visit and put an emphasis on this region toward returnee families, elderly and disabled people who have decided to return to their homes, guided by feelings for something or someone, towards the country they had to leave by force, running in front of the aggressor. We care for mothers whose children, husbands and relatives have fallen to the knees of evil people and creators of inappropriate ideas that this will not be called Bosnia. This is Bosnia and Herzegovina full of good and honest people, many of us remember Bosna as such and it will be membered as such centuries after us. We cultivate a nice relationship with tradition and we will not allow to forget memories when they leave us, we will not forget the path they passed while they were breathing the same air as all of us and behaving quite normally that no one should have bothered, but it did. We will not allow that their desire rot like an old stump and within all their memories. As many as sad and painful memories carry these people in their hearts, they have love for this piece of our only homeland, for their backyard. And even in the old ruins of the hearth in which they raised their children, still live memory on them and all the beautiful things that happened inside the four crumbled walls. They deserve special attention and we will provide care for them tired and sad, we will be there to support them from day to day, so that they would not feel alone and rejected. So far, we have built “Boarding accommodation in Potočari” for returnee children, for children to whom the school was up to 50 km away, and thus that we provided accommodation and gave a chance to go to school without burdening of their parents who feed their families from agricultural work. We started with the “Day Care Center” project for school children in Zvornik and Potočari. We have also formed a mobile team that visits 40 mothers of Srebrenica every day, helping them with house care, taking care about their health and providing them with other necessary services. 24 hours daily and throughout the week, we are at their service for their needs, bearing in mind that they live in very remote Srebrenica villages, connected by inaccessible and overgrown road infrastructures, surrounded by minefields and kilometers away from the first neighbors. In order to take care of these mothers as efficiently as possible, we have started the construction of “Center for Elderly people”, where our beneficiaries of the project “Love for the Mothers of Srebrenica” will certainly have priority, as well as other people from the wider area of Podrinje. Mothers will be near to their loved ones that buried in the Memorial Center, and their health care will be improved. We must not forget other returnees and residents to whom we continuously provide support through the distribution of food and hygiene parcels, but also the permanent project “One meal per day” through which we deliver meals to the doorsteps of socially vulnerable people every day in the wider area of Srebrenica, Bratunac, Potočari and Zvornik.
IFS-EMMAUS is one of the largest humanitarian organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region, seeks to investigate the causes of each problem in order to solve with its activities and to achieve goal almost without consequences. We are succeeding more and more and that is our obligation.
Good things will return with better things!
