- Under the auspices of The Human Safety Net initiative, Generali and the Novak Đoković Foundation will open 15 Parent Centres throughout Serbia
- The aim of the project is to provide support to parents of children up to 6 years of age through by them attending the ‘Support, NOT perfection’ programme
Under the auspices of The Human Safety Net initiative, Generali Osiguranje Srbija and the Novak Đoković Foundation have opened the first Parent Centre at the Kolibri preschool in Kovačica.
Parent Centres are a unique project that is implemented in the Republic of Serbia for the first time and was designed with the aim of parents, i.e. participants in the ‘Support, NOT Perfection’ programme, implemented by the Novak Đoković Foundation with the support of Generali’s initiative The Human Safety Net, being more empowered to take better care of their children.
A total of ten centres will have been opened by the year-end – in Pančevo, Šabac, Vladimirci, Bač, Jagodina, Sremska Mitrovica, Belgrade, Novi Sad and Užice – while five more centres to be opened in 2022. The funds have been provided via the Expand Impact project, a part of an innovative, multi-year strategy of the Generali Group called The Human Safety Net, which aims to exert social influence on the most vulnerable families and ambitious small business owners worldwide.
The ‘Support, NOT Perfection’ programme was designed by the expert team from the Novak Đoković Foundation. It consists of 10 workshops led by trained facilitators and its main goal is to provide parents and guardians of children under the age of 6 with the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and skills and create a mutual support network. Parent Centers will be an important resource for all parents, carers and professionals from local communities. They will have at their disposal a comfortable, creative and pleasant environment in which they will have the opportunity to share the experiences and challenges they face every day, which are of great importance for them and their children.
The national director of the Novak Đoković Foundation, Maja Kremić, a member of the Executive Board of Generali Osiguranje Srbija, Gorana Rašić, programme manager of the Novak Đoković Foundation, Smiljana Grujić, and Nataša Kostić, director of the Kolibri preschool, addressed the guests at the official opening.
“We are happy and satisfied that, thanks to the selfless support of our long-term partners, we continue to empower parents and guardians in the most important and demanding life role. In accordance with the personal views of our founders, we believe that the family is the basis of every healthy society and community and we are looking forward to the new faces, stories and friendships that the workshops in these centres will create,” said Maja Kremić, national director of the Novak Đoković Foundation.
The plan is for the ‘Support, NOT perfection’ programme to include another 2,200 parents and almost 4,400 children, in close cooperation with the state and local governments, during the rest of 2021 and in 2022.
“Since 2017, our Foundation has been successfully implementing the ‘Support, NOT Perfection’ programme, which has helped a large number of families throughout Serbia. Our workshops, which resulted in the opening of centres like this one in Kovačica today, are based on honesty, warmth, respect and – probably the keyword in this whole story – support. As of this autumn, the centres will launch a new cycle of programme workshops, with 2,000 parents and guardians from 24 towns throughout Serbia already attending the workshops,” said Smiljana Grujić, general programme manager of the Novak Đoković Foundation.
“We are happy that, thanks to Generali’s initiative – The Human Safety Net – we have the opportunity to support the Support, NOT Perfection programme, launched by our partner, the Novak Đoković Foundation. In the coming period, owing to the additional funds provided by our initiative, and together with our partner and with the support of local governments, we will open Parent Centres in 15 towns in Serbia. In that way, we will provide even better support to parents in carrying out an important life task, and for children to grow up happier and have equal chances for a better future,” added Gorana Rašić, a member of the Executive Board of Generali Osiguranje Srbija.
“We are grateful to the Novak Đoković Foundation, Generali Osiguranje Srbija and The Human Safety Net for recognizing our multinational environment where opinions, traditions and customs are intertwined, as well as the stance towards raising children. As an educator, I can say that the workshops with parents made me look at life and children completely differently, to put myself in the role of a child and follow their needs, feelings and get to know their soul. By exchanging experiences and ideas, together with our children, we make the world a better place,” said Nataša Kostić, director of the Kolibri preschool and facilitator of the ‘Support, NOT Perfection’ programme.
THE HUMAN SAFETY NET
The Human Safety Net is a Generali Group initiative that connects people with the view of providing support to those people who need it most. Aiming to improve the lives of people outside of everyday business, the Generali Group has joined forces with non-profit organizations around the world. Generali Osiguranje Srbija joined the initiative in October 2017, and the following year it entered into a partnership with the Novak Đoković Foundation. Generali Osiguranje Srbija engages its employees and provides financial support to the ‘Support, NOT Perfection’ programme, which helps parents and guardians to provide children under the age of six with an opportunity for a better future despite difficult life circumstances.
THE NOVAK ĐOKOVIĆ FOUNDATION
The Novak Đoković Foundation (NDF) was founded in 2007 as an organization that funds preschool education in Serbia, a country where only every second child has access to preschool education. The Foundation’s work is based on the belief that preschool education can change the lives of children and the whole community. This is achieved by creating the top quality programnes and learning environments, in which more than 2,200 educators and teachers are given the opportunity to improve their skills. So far, the NDF has reconstructed and built 47 kindergartens and helped more than 47,505 children.