Football helps displaced Serbian boy forget his handicap

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 09:24:36 GMT

Slobodan Simic shows off his ball control skills. The displaced Serb from Kosovo was born with only one arm. © UNHCR/D.Madzarevic

TRNBAS COLLECTIVE CENTRE, Serbia, July 16 (UNHCR) – Slobodan Simic was born with only one arm, but the 17-year-old Serb has found a surprising way to get round his physical handicap and adjust to life as a displaced person.

Slobodan simply loves football and, with the help of UNHCR and its corporate partner Nike, he is getting to live his dream of playing the game with a proper ball that he can call his own. That might not sound like much to millions of privileged children around the world, but they have never had to flee their homes and try to start a new life in a strange place with little money.

The Simic family – Slobodan and his mother, father, older brother and sister-in-law – used to live in the town of Obiliæ in central Kosovo. But in 1999 they fled to Serbia when NATO airstrikes forced the Yugoslavian government to withdraw its troops from the territory, officially a province of Serbia but now administered by the United Nations.

Today, their home – and that of some 220 other displaced people from Kosovo and nine refugees from Croatia – is this collective centre located near the central Serbian city of Kragujevac. Extra accomodation blocks were built in the former children's holiday camp to help cope with the influx of displaced people from 1999 while UNHCR and several aid agencies have been helping the inhabitants in various ways.

For full story please see http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/469b80842.html

Refugees get chance to study

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:40:50 GMT

The front view of Hope Primary School in Ndejje, Najjana. INSET are pupils in a classroom

UGANDA is home to 216,731 refugees, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). The current model of international assistance to refugees focuses on meeting their immediate and important basic needs whereas long-term needs such as education are compromised. But in a small school in Najjanankumbi, many refugee children have had a chance to receive education, writes Stephen Ssenkaaba

ABOVE a steep hill on a small piece of land stands a brick house, staring down at a thick forest. The house, with fresh red iron bars for windows and red corrugated iron sheets, is divided into three rooms.

From inside each room, shrill innocent voices are heard, punctuated by occasional clapping and singing.

This is not just a house. It is a school. Hope Primary School, one of the few schools in the country that cater for the education of refugee children in Uganda.

For full story please visit http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/9/35/574895

Nine Million Children Refugees: From the field

Football helps displaced Serbian boy forget his handicap

Refugees get chance to study