An incredibly important day for the activities of the DIP – on Monday, October 9th, 2023, our representative Bernard Šešo received the contract on the financing of the social service of half-day stay, concluded between the DIP and the Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy in Zagreb!

“Minister of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy, Marin Piletić, handed over 60 contracts worth more than six million euros to social services providers, for the purpose of developing and expanding the network of social services in the community. He pointed out that the contracts will ensure the regional spread of services in 18 counties and enable systematic access to services.” Among these is the Society for Research and Support, our DIP, for the social service of half-day stay. Although we also provide the social service of psychosocial support, there was no public call for contracts for it in this cycle.

More at: https://mrosp.gov.hr/vijesti/ministar-marin-piletic-urucio-60-ugovora-vrijdnih-sest-milijuna-eura-za-razvoj-i-sirenje-mreze-socijalnih-usluga/13187 ?fbclid=IwAR2GMwarVnj0XCWekRgD880nD1TZhKiMRlIQZpUPWUD86pwuiQ7r-eBWFLA

Since its establishment, the Society for Research and Support has been operating in the field of ensuring social and other conditions necessary for exercising the rights of persons with disabilities and combating discrimination for all groups that need support and care. Our priority group is persons with disabilities, especially young people who are just leaving the education system.

The rights of persons with disabilities are defined by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and this is our normative and social framework for action. Convention: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/HR/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:22010A0127(01)&from=EN.  Croatia undertook to do everything in order to comply with the provisions of this Convention, so in 2007 it adopted a decision on the promulgation of the Law on Confirmation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – http://Act on Confirmation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on rights of persons with disabilities https://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/medunarodni/2007_06_6_80.html

We, as well as all those organizations and individuals who work tirelessly to improve the rights and create an inclusive and sustainable community in which persons with disabilities live; and all the persons with disabilities and their families and numerous volunteers, know precisely what the implementation of this Act actually looks like. It must be said that there is progress, which gained momentum with the entry of Croatia into the European Union. Now we must all work together to improve the quality of the provision of social services, because there is still a great deal of unevenness in that area, so some organizations – social service providers, are just “custodians” of the principle “any form of implementation is better than none”, while some really implement effective programs which encourage the development and inclusion of persons with disabilities in the community in which they live.

This year we are celebrating 10 years of activity and foundation of the DIP, so this contract is also a reward for our hard work. Although the ministry did not call for tenders for the contracting of social services during these 10 years of our struggle, the exercise of this right was partly replaced by the co-financing of the 3rd annual programs in the area of “expansion of the network of social services”, personal assistance programs and other programs, but “on a project basis”. Since the establishment of the DIP, this ministry has co-financed the provision of social services through three such cycles, and other costs have continued to be co-financed “on a project basis”, and we, as well as other organizations that provide social services, have gone through the hell of applying for tenders every year. with countless application forms, with excessive administrative requirements. All our efforts were aimed at meeting the requirements of the Ordinance on standards for the provision of social services, https://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/2022_09_110_1624.html,  – having employed experts, having appropriate spatial conditions and all that which is necessary in order for the entire organization of the provision of social services to be continuous but also in accordance with our demanding program and all this, regardless of whether or not we managed to collect enough funds for implementation. This means that we volunteered endlessly, and invested extraordinary efforts in attracting as many volunteers as possible, whom we educated, in order to ensure support. This means a lot of enthusiasm and flexibility, a lot of hours of writing project applications, a lot of hours of reporting for an average of 10 to 15 donors per year, and an increasing number of beneficiaries every day. The increasing number of collaborators who want to stay with us and who want to participate in the program gave us the strength to wait for this day when we will receive adequate support for at least one of the social services we provide – accommodation.

At the regional level, we have been recognized by the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County since our foundation, through co-financing in the social welfare and youth program, and from 2022 we are finally in the public needs program of social welfare and the City of Rijeka. We have numerous donors, from companies to citizens, we have conducted numerous fundraising campaigns, and we give our heartfelt thanks to everyone who believed in us. More about the donors: