The fact is that young families from other Herzegovinian municipalities and cities, as well as other countries, are moving to Ljubuški, and the reason is the numerous demographic measures that this city has been offering in recent years. The goal of the local authorities is for young people living in Ljubuški to stay here and to make their lives easier, but also to attract new young families to this city, and they are succeeding in this.
In recent years, Ljubuški has been offering a number of demographic measures to keep young people here. Among other things, it offers maternity support, child allowance, kindergarten subsidies, free transport for pupils and support for students.
Katarina Vištica was born in Ljubuski, but moved to Mostar when she got married. Last year, she returned to Ljubuški with her daughter and husband from Mostar. She says that it was not easy to persuade her husband.
“To which he was a little suspicious, he said, I don’t know, it’s a small town, this is that, but when we came here, he won’t leave now,” says Katarina.
She says that living conditions in Ljubuški are much better than in Mostar or other areas. Her family received support when buying their first property, and her 11-year-old daughter, she says, has free textbooks and transportation to school. They are expecting a new baby soon, and the counties of Ljubuški and West Herzegovina provide significant maternity allowances, as well as a child allowance. Each born child receives 500 marks, and every third and subsequent child receives 500 marks each month until the seventh year of age.
Ljubuški also has the cheapest kindergarten in the country, with a price of 90 or 100 marks, and it also supports students, graduates and pensioners. They are trying to include all categories of society in order to make life easier for them, especially young people, in order to stop their departure and attract them to Ljubuška.
“These are probably the reasons why more and more young families are coming to us, not only from the surrounding area, but also from some other countries, so last year we had two families from Germany, a family from Switzerland, France who immigrated and live permanently with us, because here they have clean air, nice nature, security that we who live here don’t even think about,” says the mayor of Ljubuški, Vedran Markotić.
“I could have left, there was some thinking about whether we should or not, but we stayed anyway, we tried it, and we liked it, we are doing well, thank God. I would tell everyone to come, let them fight, it is difficult at first, but every obstacle can be overcome if you have support,” adds Katarina Vištica.
Thanks to demographic measures, last year Ljubuški finally recorded positive natural growth for the first time in many years, says the mayor. He states that the entire West Herzegovina County is directed towards a demographic policy, and that such an example should be followed by other areas, because this is the only way for young people to stay in our country, BHRT writes.
