{"id":3159275,"date":"2021-01-15T17:10:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T17:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webalkans.eu\/serbias-83-year-old-volunteer-heroine\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T11:07:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:07:57","slug":"serbias-83-year-old-volunteer-heroine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webalkans.eu\/en\/serbias-83-year-old-volunteer-heroine\/","title":{"rendered":"Serbia\u2019s 83-year-old volunteer heroine"},"content":{"rendered":"\nDanica \u0160mic from Serbia contributes as a volunteer by staying in touch with older people who need help during the COVID-19 pandemic.\r\n\r\n<div>\n\nDanica \u0160mic was born in Belgrade in 1937 and survived the city\u2019s bombing by hiding in the basement of the building where she lived with her parents. She is a retired physics and mathematics teacher with two sons; she is also a volunteering heroine, with more than 50 years of charity work helping people in trouble.\n\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\u201cVolunteering is one of my great pleasures. I love visiting people who are living alone, so that they don\u2019t feel lonely or forgotten,\u201d says Danica, who completed a course to become a volunteer Red Cross nurse in 1970, and hasn\u2019t stopped actively participating in public life ever since \u2013 during both war and peace. \u201cIf we want this world to be a better, more just and humane place to live, the first step is to volunteer, to help one another, not only during pandemics or floods. It should be an everyday part of our lives.\u201d Danica has stayed active during the COVID-19 pandemic: she writes and publishes and stays in touch with older people who need help, or who feel lonely, scared or rejected by the community.\n\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<h2><strong>\u201cOlder people are not a burden for society: society can benefit from them.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\nDuring over half a century of activism and volunteering, Danica has been an advocate of older people\u2019s rights: \u201cOlder people are not a burden for society: society can benefit from them, but intergenerational solidarity is especially important, and this has become evident during the coronavirus pandemic. Coronavirus didn\u2019t stop us from helping each other, and we still managed to volunteer, but in a different way, and intergenerational solidarity helped us to contact each other and to learn from each other.\u201d\n\nThis volunteer says that everyone must find their &#8220;inner volunteer&#8221; and help people in their neighbourhood as much as they can. Family and school are particularly important when it comes to building these habits among children and young people: &#8220;I think that there should be lessons about volunteering and solidarity and that people should engage in these activities from an early age. We are a nation that loves, knows how to and wants to help one another, but we also tend to forget things very quickly.&#8221;\r\n\r\n<h2><strong>&#8220;I am so happy because of the photo, I&#8217;m speechless. With all kinds of success and praise comes even greater joy, but even greater responsibility. This inspires you, and it is an incentive for you to continue working.&#8221;<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\nThis project was funded through a larger-scale project<em>, <\/em><em>Priority Action for Gender Equality<\/em><em> \u2013<\/em> implemented in partnership with UN Women and the EU Delegation to Serbia \u2013 which aims to strengthen administrative capacities for gender equality and achieve progress in implementation of EU and national gender equality commitments through gender mainstreaming.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\nDanica appeared in a photograph titled \u201cAt a bus stop \u2013 a volunteer on her way to visit a dependent elderly person\u201d which won first prize in the Best EU Project Photo category in the Human in Focus contest organised by the EU Delegation to Serbia in partnership with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.rs\/\">National Geographic Serbia<\/a>\n\nThe photograph was submitted by a project called \u201cIncreased Participation of Older Women in Public and Political Life\u201d, implemented by Citizens Association Amity in partnership with FemPlatz organisation. She says \u201cI am so happy because of the photo, I\u2019m speechless. With all kinds of success and praise comes even greater joy, but even greater responsibility. This inspires you, and it is an incentive for you to continue working.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Danica \u0160mic from Serbia contributes as a volunteer by staying in touch with older people who need help during the COVID-19 pandemic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3159276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[694],"tags":[],"area-of-cooperation":[],"country":[250],"opportunity-type":[],"class_list":["post-3159275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","country-serbia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Serbia\u2019s 83-year-old volunteer heroine - WeBalkans<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/webalkans.eu\/en\/serbias-83-year-old-volunteer-heroine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Serbia\u2019s 83-year-old volunteer heroine - 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