Novi Sad Humanitarian Centre (NSHC) is a humanitarian, non-governmental, and not-for-profit civic association, actively working in the field of social and humanitarian care and protection as well as rehabilitation of the vulnerable individuals, families and marginalized groups.

 

NSHC provides humanitarian, psychosocial, educational and other support to vulnerable groups in society, including refugees and internally displaced persons, Roma, children and youth, the elderly, victims of trafficking, and others. NSHC is a member organization of Anti-Poverty Network in Serbia which gathers civil society organization which are active in the fight against poverty, complementing the Government’s anti-poverty efforts.

 

NSHC promotes volunteerism and has expertise in supporting non-formal youth groups and youth NGOs to develop their project management capacities and capabilities. NSHC promotes volunteer work among youth and engages young people as volunteers within the “Children’s Centre” project that assists Roma children in education. NSHC also provides support to other non-governmental organizations and networks in Serbia in development of their capacities for project cycle management, organizational development, fundraising, volunteer management, and social entrepreneurship. The support is provided mainly through trainings, counselling, best practice sharing, and technical support.

 

NSHC provides consultancy and technical support to youth NGOs and youth informal groups in Novi Sad and in the province of Vojvodina (trainings in project cycle management, fundraising, advisory assistance in NGO management, etc.).

 

NSHC implements health promotion activities (trainings, public actions) targeting youth, especially related to mental health, reproductive health, and healthy nutrition and shares expertise, including social enterprise, with other NGOs.

 

Novi Sad was recently given the title of “European Youth Capital 2019”. The title European Youth Capital is awarded to a European city for a period of one year. The city and its young people, which becomes European Youth Centre, get the opportunity, through numerous programs and projects, to demonstrate the cultural, social, political and economic life and development.

This was the result of efforts by a group of NGOs (registered as OPENS 2019 alliance) supported by the City of Novi Sad. NSHC supported this initiative and, together with other NGOs in the city, NSHC takes part in OPENS 2019 activities – educational, promotional, and other.

 

In the field of enterprise / social enterprise NSHC has three current activities which they can bring experience and expertise to the project partnership:

 

  1. NSHC facilitates creation of an enabling local environment for young entrepreneurs in four municipalities in Serbia and provides trainings for start-ups in organic food production, local tourism development, and provision of social services.

 

  1. NSHC provides home care services to elderly persons in Novi Sad. This activity is partly financed from the City budget, and partly from beneficiaries themselves (as participation in costs). Apart from helping the elderly, the project employs three “hard-to-employ” women as home carers.

 

  1. NSHC also provides psychological counselling services to youth and other citizens of Novi Sad. Volunteers – psychologists and psychotherapists provide these services pro bono, as part of their training practice. Clients are paying small fee as a participation in costs, and this income is used to cover the costs of supervision for the volunteers and the costs of running the Psychological Counselling Centre.

 

In addition there are also close links with the following local social enterprise activities:

 

  1. NGO “Atina” Belgrade supports victims of human trafficking. Two years ago, this NGO has started a bagel shop with aim to employ their beneficiaries and invest income in their education and employment: http://www.bagel.rs/english.html

 

  1. „Lice ulice” is a bi-monthly street magazine sold by homeless people and other marginalized groups. It was started by a Belgrade-based NGO. Half of the price for one copy goes directly to the person who sells it, the other half is invested back in the production of the magazine: https://liceulice.wordpress.com/

 

  1. Primary and secondary school for persons with disabilities “Milan Markovic” in Novi Sad is a public institution which engages its pupils in their textile, carpentry, and other workshops. The produced items are sold in a school shop: http://smp.edu.rs

 

  1. Company DES in Novi Sad was established as a public company in 1948 with aim to employ persons with disabilities. It has 190 employees, and more than half of them are persons with disabilities: http://www.des.co.rs/s/

 

NSHC has a staff team of 9 full-time employed, 52 part-time employed, and 20 volunteers.