Erstellt am: 23. 6. 2011 - 11:00 Uhr
What would you change?
I freely admit that the story title is not of my invention, but is the Erste Foundation’s slogan.
The front cover of the diving course pamphlet at first glance looks just like any other: the unsurprising deep blue-green of an underwater landscape and a scuba diver facing the camera. But after a split second the difference hits me – the diver has only one leg – the other has been amputated. This is the leaflet for the Eco Sports Group, which is based in Bosnia & Herzegovina and is “a non governmental organization founded by persons with disabilities …oriented towards improving the life quality of disabled persons.” The man handing me the leaflet and telling me his story is Abdulah Vrselj. In the 1990s, Abdulah was a soldier in the Bosnian army during the war. In 1992 his right leg was blown off by a landmine. The shrapnel caused wounds all over his body, and today the scars are still visible on his face and his hands. He tells me that he recovered quite quickly from his injuries because he was young and fit. Getting your physical health back is one thing but getting your life back is another.
The Geronimo diving club in Croatia, like Abdulah's club in Bosnia, offers therapeutic diving lessons to people with disabilities
erste foundation
In Bosnia, as in most of Eastern Europe, people with disabilities as well as the homeless, the elderly, members of ethnic minorities or those from the LGBT community are often confronted with marginalisation on a scale much larger than we in Western Europe are familiar with. In Abdulah’s case, there was no support from public authorities – as he put it, problems such as his are small in the eyes of the government, but big for the people afflicted by them.
erste foundation
The logo and physical incarnation of the award for social integration take the form of a sea urchin. The actual “trophy” is the work of Croatian artist Sanja Ivekovic - a basketball-sized sculpture of sharp black steel spines, which has to be handled with special protective gloves. Ivekovic intended it to symbolise “difficulties in social or political contexts in this region. I was thinking how the takers and the givers of the trophy should be aware of these difficulties. We had this traumatic past and it is for a good reason that we are kind of wanting to check what is the meaning of this support … and on the other side I think that the people … who are willing to invest or to help should also aware that they have to learn – it’s not so easy as they would think”.
Introducing the Award for Social Integration
I am speaking to Abdulah in Prague at a gathering of people from all over Central and Eastern Europe. People involved in a vast array of projects and initiatives to help those who are given the cold shoulder by society. They were brought here by the Erste Foundation for an event to bestow the 2011 Awards for Social Integration. The Erste Foundation is a shareholder in the Austrian bank of the same name, and spends its dividends on funding social projects. The focus on Central and Eastern Europe comes in part from the fact that the Erste Bank Group does a lot of business in this region, generating a large part of the profits which feed back to the foundation. The idea of the award is to “offer recognition to the individuals and organisations who are striving for the social integration of disadvantaged groups”. But why is there such a need to promote social integration in this particular region? With many of our eastern European neighbours now in the European Union it’s easy to forget that it’s scarcely more than two decades since the fall of the Iron Curtain and it takes more than elections and a market economy to shake off the communist past. In the words of Boris Marte, member of the board and managing director of the Erste Foundation, these are societies which are “still in a critical stage of transformation. Transformation has reached the economy (but) transformation has not reached the society yet … what we in fact need is to explain why the civic sector is so important for strong democratic structures. And we have to explain that the institutionalisation of society in the form of the civic sector is THE power for freedom ... and justice. We see now how big the damage is in societies that don't have the strategies nor the tools to react socially”. Suzana Dobre, a social policy expert for the Romanian Academic Society, highlights the example of attitudes in Romania towards people with disabilities: during the communist era disability did not fit with the idea of the “new man” and after the fall of communism in the 1990s, disability “spoiled” the image of the country, so there were no public services to help people with disabilities, only charities and non-governmental organisations. In Romania only 12 percent of people with a disability have a job, compared to 50 percent in Western Europe.
Celebrating dedicated individuals
The gathering in Prague is lively and very diverse. Organisations from 12 countries are represented here: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. 132 projects were chosen as “country winners” by a group of national and local experts, from a total of 1,865 applications submitted for the award. The projects featured add another level of diversity: the Roma Press Agency in Slovakia gives journalistic training to people from Roma communities, so they can actively report on issues of importance to them rather than remain the passive object of media coverage by others; Bódvalenke Fresco Village in northern Hungary turned itself into a permanent exhibition of Roma art to attract tourists, helping to reduce poverty and foster contact with non-Roma people; a project in Moldova aims to promote the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schooling; the Roses of Saint Francis Homeless Shelter in Rijeka; an initiative in Kosovo aims to help integrate children with autism; Abdulah’s organisation helps people with disabilities by taking them diving and getting them involved in water sports. And there are many, many more projects displaying a wealth of creativity and dedication.
erste foundation
Of the 132 organisations “shortlisted” for this event, 33 of them selected by an international jury take home an award which recognises “exceptional, innovative, effective, or otherwise remarkable action to enable people who live on the margins of society to fully participate in the societies they live in“. Three projects are singled out as winners of the first, second and third prizes. There is, of course, a sum of money for all the winners, which will no doubt be a welcome practical contribution to their continued work, but this ceremony is about much more than that – it’s about paying tribute to people who give so much of their own time and energy to trying to help others. The award ceremony is a glitzy affair, staged in the Barrandov film studios, among the largest and oldest film studios in Europe. The event is imbued with a certain amount of Hollywood-style pizzazz, but it is a humbling experience to see this kind of attention focused on work that quietly takes place far away from the world of big screen glamour and fortunes.
And the 2011 Award goes to...
The recipient of the spiny urchin trophy for the 2011 First Prize is a project to provide shelter and counselling for women and children who are victims of domestic violence, run by the Autonomous Women’s House in Zagreb, which in the words of the Erste Foundation “has been enormously influential in pioneering support for victims of domestic violence in Croatia …even by the highest international standards, the “Shelter and Counselling Centre for Women and Children Victims of Violence” is extraordinarily successful. It has a 90% success rate in preventing returns to violent situations.” When Neva Tölle founded the Autonomous Women’s House in the 1980s there were no laws in Croatia to punish the men who abused their wives, girlfriends and children. The figures speak for themselves and as Neva herself says, the work of her project saves lives. It’s a heart-warming experience to witness the celebration of this woman’s work (herself a victim of domestic violence) and her excitement and joy at being the jury’s choice. But it’s also impossible to forget the many others who are also being celebrated.
erste foundation
Some of the people and organisations represented at the Erste Foundation Award for Social Integration are featured in Reality Check on Saturday 25th September.