Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Asylum Protection Center has played a significant role in helping refugees from that country. Providing new and relevant information, providing legal assistance, such as obtaining temporary protected status, identity card and obtaining a work permit in Serbia are just some of the types of support that is constantly provided to refugees. Certainly, humanitarian aid is not lacking either, usually in the form of clothing, food, hygiene products, medicines, school material.

Since a significant number of families exactly chose Serbia as a place of their residence, many children are enrolled and attend schools in our country. APC/CZA also provided support to refugees in this field. We helped to obtain all the necessary documentation, to start and finish the enrolling process so these children, foreign citizens, could attend school and get a fresh start and build peaceful life in a new community. Also, our organization made sure to provide the children with the necessary textbooks.

APC/CZA, as a local professional organization, which has been working for the longest time on the integration of refugees in Serbia since the first asylums were granted in 2012, recognizes the importance of cooperation with local schools, aimed at adapting of children to a new environment as easily and quickly as possible. As so far the local schools, where refugee children from Ukraine have arrived, have not faced the attendance of foreign children, those institutions have encountered numerous challenges. This is precisely why Asylum Protection Center helps as a mediator in this process, making it easier for both children to fit in and schools and professional staff to navigate the new situation in the most efficient way. In an effort to make the entire process as easy as possible, our organization also ensured the presence of a translator on all the important occasions.

As one form of support, Asylum Protection Center organized cultural workshops in the elementary school in Kać, a small town near Novi Sad. From the beginning, this school has shown the will and motivation to receive new students from Ukraine in the best way possible. Therefore, fruitful cooperation was achieved. Our students also warmly welcomed their new friends, which was clear at the workshops that our colleagues held together with the translators, which brought joy to the children and gave them the opportunity to get to know each other better.