Bujanovac – There are about three and a half thousand poor citizens in the municipality of Bujanovac. The Ministry of Labor provided food and hygiene packages to the most vulnerable families in rural areas. The aid was handed out by Bujanovac Red Cross workers.

The aid reaches remote rural households in the Bujanovac municipality. The area is dispersed, so that Red Cross workers visit several villages daily.  

Marika Manic and Blagica Andjelkovic are neighbors in the village of Kosarne, where the majority of the population is elderly.

“Just me and grandpa, we keep cattle, cows, goats, pick plums.  We know how we live, we don't have pensions, we don't even have salaries, we have nothing, "Marika said.

In August, 230 parcels were distributed in 14 villages to the most vulnerable, which include  families with several children, families without permanent income, beneficiaries of financial social assistance and single elderly households.

"I'm the only one making money in the family. I have two children and an unemployed wife. I work at a firm where we receive small salaries, minimum wages. We are also a bit engaged in  agriculture and when there is drought like this year, there is nothing, "said Ivica Djordjevic from the village of Ljiljance.

His neighbor Ranko Djoric said that they had received donations ten years before, and that they meant a lot because the place, according to him, was passive.

The Government of Serbia, at the initiative of the Red Cross and through the Ministry of Labor, provided the funds for the purchase of family packages this year, too. 920 packages were allocated to Bujanovac.  

“Fifty percent of those receiving the packages are elderly households. The beneficiaries are not always the same, 30 to 40 percent of them change every year. The number of beneficiaries is increasing, it is by no means decreasing, "said Damjan Popovic of the Bujanovac Red Cross

The Red Cross soup kitchen operates in Bujanovac, where 1,200 meals are prepared for the most vulnerable Serbian, Albanian and Roma residents. 

Source: RTS and Coordination Body