When the Christmas “shoe box” gift packages come to Serbia, there are literally thousands that need to be distributed all across northern Serbia. With schools closed for 2 weeks for winter holidays, that means the distribution usually stretches out through a good part of January…
Roma children are not used to receiving gifts at Christmas, or at any other time of the year for that matter. It’s a hard fact of their young lives that standards are low, life is hard, and if there’s ever any money around, it will go to buy food. How wonderfully satisfying was it then for us to be able to be a blessing and the hands of Jesus during this Christmas season by bringing the children Christmas “shoe box” gift packages…
As part of our Christmas 2012 schedule we were happy to be able to bring the Joy of Christmas to nearly 200 kindergarten children in a village of northern Serbia. Our program was comprised of lively Christmas songs and a skit that featured…
We had been talking to two of our friends about how we were helping the poor Roma settlement near to us and how we had recently brought them a donated generator so they could have electricity in the evenings, since the isolated area where they are living does not have running water or electricity. The young couple, who are not so well off themselves, said they wanted to donate to them some warm bedding and other things for the winter…
Over 7 years ago while driving along an isolated country road we noticed a small Roma encampment of a few dilapidated shacks next to a tiny stream. Since we generally carry some humanitarian aid in the back of our vehicle, we stopped and went down to give them what we had with us…
It is always so rewarding to visit Kosovo. Our first trip was in the fall of 1999, just 3 months after the NATO bombing. That trip required a 16 hour drive over two mountain ranges and the traversing of myriad craters in what remained of roads that had been hit by air-to-surface missles, not to mention the…
Thanks to the generous donations of food, clothing, shoes, toys, hygienic supplies, and a wide variety of other gifts-in-kind, Healing Hearts Balkans volunteers are able to regularly distribute humanitarian aid to those in need.
Upon arriving in the former Yugoslavia in the summer of 1995, we immediately began working in the numerous centers for refugees that were located throughout Slovenia. Families had been ripped away from everything they knew, and were now being housed in temporary, often bleak conditions in abandoned warehouses, wooden barracks, student dormitories, and run-down hotels.
In solidarity with the political commitment by European governments to improve the socio-economic status and social inclusion of Roma, Healing Hearts Balkans continues to do its part through the teaching and training of Roma children. Our original character-building material is used regularly in kindergartens for Roma children, and our music therapy and animation activities teach and inspire Roma children in the villages of Vojvodina (northern Serbia).
Since our arrival in the former Yugoslavia in 1995, besides helping in the post-war recovery, one of the areas that we identified as being very needy and one that we wanted to focus our attention on was that of helping the handicapped and those with special needs.
