We protest and even get angry at those who leave Bosnia and Herzegovina, while we ignore those who returned to their country as refugees. And they don’t live well. Thanks to a donation from the humanitarian organization Pomozi.ba, sixty socially disadvantaged families in Drvar received aid packages. It is a returnee municipality where there are not many opportunities for employment, and it is difficult to make a living from small-scale agriculture and casual work.
In recent days, the Association of Shepherds and the Trade Union of MIA K10, Drvar branch, have shown that, when there is a will, there is a way to cooperate with the humanitarian organization Pomozi.ba and distribute aid to families in need.
“They donated 60 packages of humanitarian aid to vulnerable families. We handed over 10 packages to the MIA Union and distributed the rest to 50 families that we consider to be at risk, although there are many more,” says Nikica Rodić, president of the Drvar Shepherd Association.
And among them are three generations of the Bursać family in Donji Vrtoče. Mirjana Bursać says that she can no longer work due to her poor health, and that she supports herself thanks to her son’s occasional jobs.
Any help is welcome, points out Vera Savić, whose family of three lives from agriculture. In order to supplement her modest income, she also deals with medicinal plants.
“I collect, dry and then sell it in the markets. We are not able to get a better ranking, we have a desire to do better in the future. Basically, we know all kinds of plants, we deal with it,” says Vera.
Even before cooperation with the humanitarian organization Pomozi.ba, the MIA Union of Canton 10 collected aid for socially vulnerable families. Touring the field, they realized that much more was needed than what they assumed.
“During the conversation with my colleagues who are in the field every day and who passed on this information to me, I simply wasn’t even aware of how many families there are that are socially vulnerable. I would dare to say, maybe there are even families who, unfortunately, go to bed hungry at night”, points out Marko Žižić, trade union commissioner of Police Station Drvar.
Although their job description includes maintaining public order and peace, protecting the law as well as citizens and their property, police officers showed their humane side by collecting and distributing aid. And that, as the Trade Union told us, will continue to happen in the future.