Awarding of Agreements on donation of didactic material and technical equipment

The ceremony on awarding of Agreements on donation of equipment for towns and municipalities was held on November 29, 2023, as part of the 51st SCTM General Assembly. The donation is part of the activities of the project "Support to local self-governments for spread of good policies and practices of parenting support", implemented by UNICEF and SCTM.

Agreements on donation of equipment were awarded to representatives of 29 local self-governments, and the donated equipment consists of didactic material and IT equipment worth $3,000 per local self-government. Thus, based on the expressed needs in each of the local self-governments, institutions in the field of health, social protection, and education, as well as development counseling centers, will be supported in integrated action and capacity development for the realization of activities aimed at improving the system, implementing parenting support measures and early childhood development, which were created during the implementation of the project.

In just one year, these local governments managed to create conditions for programming measures in local budgets aimed at supporting children and parents in the earliest years, both through essential health care services (e.g., the work of the patronage service), preschool education and upbringing, social protection, and mobilization of community.

Nikola Tarbuk, Secretary General of SCTM, reminded of long-term cooperation between UNICEF and SCTM in the implementation of projects dedicated to provision of support for parenting and early childhood development.

"With our support, local governments with which we cooperate work on coordinating and strengthening cooperation between institutions in the local community, which are most responsible for the early childhood development - local governments, preschool institutions, health centers and social welfare centers. Through activities that we implement in cooperation with UNICEF and a large number of national partners, we have formed local coordination bodies to support the early childhood development, established institutional cooperation of key local institutions and we provide support to towns and municipalities in defining and budgeting local policies, measures and services for parenting support, as well as in the improvement of cooperation with parents", explained Tarbuk and pointed out that in the next year local governments will allocate more than 63 million dinars for measures planned for this purpose. In doing so, he emphasized the key role of local self-government, because it is the one that should define and finance local policies in this area, be the bearer of coordination of various local institutions and take care of the well-being of its local community, including parents and the youngest fellow citizens.

These measures include parenting schools with an intersectoral approach that include representatives of pre-school institutions and social welfare centers, equipping premises owned by the municipality in rural areas so that children who have no way to reach the town can be recognized, financing trainings for experts from the town budget, linking administrative procedures so that mothers and pregnant women can get all information at one counter in the municipality, establishing development counseling centers and similar.

Jelena Zajeganović, Head of the program for health and early childhood development - UNICEF, on this occasion emphasized that the aim of the project "Support to local self-governments for spread of good policies and practices of parenting support" is to develop and improve the existing public policies and procedures of local self-governments to strengthen the support system for parents and guardians in the first years of the child's upbringing.

"I would like to thank the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, as well as to the Consortium of Institutions and Organizations, for their cooperation in the realization of this project, which is financially supported by the LEGO Foundation. We expect that the donated equipment will contribute to the health and early childhood development in your local governments", Zajeganović said and announced the activities planned for the next period.

Agreements on donation of equipment were awarded to representatives of 29 local governments: Backa Palanka, Backi Petrovac, Bela Palanka, Boljevac, Veliko Gradište, Vladimirci, Vrbas, Vršac, Žabalj, Zemun (Belgrade), Zrenjanin, Inđija, Kikinda, Knić, Kraljevo, Kruševac, Loznica, Mionica, Nova Varoš, Palilula (Belgrade), Prijepolje, Raška, Svilajnac, Svrljig, Sjenica, Stara Pazova, Temerin, Titel and Cuprija.

The project "Support to local self-governments in developing and shaping of playful parenting related policies and practices" is implemented as part of the program "Scaling Up Playful Parenting", which is jointly implemented by UNICEF, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (SCTM), Consortium of institutions and organizations such as the City Institute for Public Health Belgrade, Republic Institute for Social Protection, Alliance of the Associations of Medical Nurses in Preschool Centers of Serbia, Centre for Support to Early Childhood Development and Family Relations – Harmony, as well as the Institute for Psychology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade, with the support of Lego Foundation.