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Banja Luka, 4 May 2010

At today’s "Branch with Journalists”, the president of the RS Association of the Blind, Branko Suzić, appealed today at the to the relevant institutions to urgently adopt the Law on Social Protection of RS in order to improve at least to a certain degree a very difficult position of the blind and visually impaired persons, as well as all other persons with disabilities. Namely, the Law on Social Protection has been in the adoption procedure for more than two years, and it had been scheduled for adoption for two times, but it was removed from the agenda of the RS National Assembly, recalled Suzić.

"Failure to adopt this Law leaves the population of blind and visually impaired persons on the edge of poverty. In percentages, 66% of about 2000 of them living in Republika Srpska are on the edge of poverty, while 17% of them are in the zone of extreme poverty", said Suzić.

Such a situation is further complicated by the fact that very little of the blind and visually impaired are employed - only 84. Private employers avoid hiring such a person because as their disability is 90% or 100%,  and when it comes to the official institutions, Suzić said that only two persons were recently employed by the municipal institutions in Brod and Zvornik.

The difficulties in the work of Alliance of the Blind, as well as many other associations of persons with disabilities, are perpetuated by the failure to adopt by-laws for the games of chance, which resulted that these associations have been deprived of these sources of funding for years.

And while the associations waited and are still waiting to resolve the issue of disbursement of funds from games of chance, the RS Lottery got a new building, which makes the associations of persons with disabilities even more frustrated and angry”, said Suzić.

Suzić pointed out the drastic differences between the RS and Federation BiH in which the social welfare for the blind and visually impaired much higher.

He reminded on a number of other barriers that blind and visually impaired are daily faced with, such as mobility (e.g. although the third generation of voice traffic lights has come out in the work, Banja Luka still does not have a single traffic light of this type), lack of voice software computers and mobile phones, TV programs and Web sites are still not adapted for blind persons, as well as unavailable staff and material in schools for inclusion of blind and visually impaired children in regular education.

Branch with Journalists is part of Project X-Press, which is jointly implemented by the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Banja Luka, Cure Foundation and the RS Association of Young Journalists. The project is supported by the European Union.

Banja Luka, 22 April 2010.

At the conference "Media and NGOs: between Skepticism and Partnership", which focused on the awarding the journalistic award "Srdjan Aleksic” for professional media coverage of marginalized groups in BiH, the establishment of the Foundation "Srdjan Aleksic" was proposed, that would serve for providing funds for awarding the journalistic awards.

The idea is to provide the funds for awards through annual membership fees and donations of interested organizations and individuals. The awards would be awarded annually to journalists who continuously monitor and report on issues and positions of various marginalized groups in the BiH society and whose contributions and/or texts result with concrete actions and progress in practice.

In addition, another topic of the conference included the terminology used in the media when reporting on marginalized groups, which is often humiliating and degrading, as it is the case with the terms gypsies, junkies, faggots, retarded, etc. The best way is that journalists ask the members of various marginalized groups what terms are not offending to them and what terms they should use when referring to these groups”, recommended the NGOs present at the conference.

The conference "Media and NGOs: between Skepticism and Partnerships" was held in Banja Luka on 20 and 21 April, organized by the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly, Cure Foundation and the RS Association of Young Journalists.

On the occasion of 4th April - International Mine Awareness Day - a "Branch with Journalists" was held in Banja Luka on 2 April, hosting a representative of the Organization of Amputated Persons UDAS, Sinisa Todorovic, as the introductory speaker. He said that in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 14 years after the war, 1555 square kilometers were still mined, and that despite this fact, state budget foresaw no funds for demining. According to Todorovic, 1631 communities endangered by mines were identified, and these communities included 23% of the population in BiH. Since the beginning of this year only, three persons suffered from left over mines, while 7412 victims of mines were registered since the beginning of the war till 2009, said Todorovic adding that UDAS was the only organization in the RS, which provided assistance and support to mine victims through different program activities. First of all, activities are directed to helping the persons suffering recover from the trauma, integrate into the community and return to a functional life, explained Todorović, adding that the laws were still differentiating between military and civilian war victims, and that there were problems with obtaining orthopedic aids. "Procedures for obtaining orthopedic aids should be simplified in order to avoid long awaiting, rejections, and appeals to rejections, and wondering around between different doctors," said Todorovic.

DD