BCIF :: News :: 2010 Archives :: BCIF on Radio Belgrade in "In The Centre of Attention" Show
2010 Archives
15-07-2010. BCIF on Radio Belgrade in "In The Centre of Attention" Show
Ksenija Graovac, Philanthropy Program Manager and Tanja Bjelanović, Program Director of BCIF, visited Radio Belgrade’s „The Centre of Attention” show. They spoke with the editor and host of the show Slobodan Nikolić on the topic of foundations and philanthropy in Serbia, and about the new Law on Foundations, on whose production Balkan Community Initiatives Fund is working in partnership with Ministry of Culture.
Tanja Bjelanović, Program Director of BCIF, explained the situation in relation to the new Law on Foundations: „The law reached the Assembly with the help and support by many – foundations, interest groups which are concerned with that part of legal regulative. The reason for the initiative and passing of the law was that the old law was outdated. That law was passed in 1989, and it is completely inadequate for the regulation of foundations today, in this social context. The idea is that legal regulative enables foundations to function more easily, but also to encourage the founding of new foundations, and the spirit of foundations and philanthropy in general. We wanted to make the law more up-to-date, and to make it in accordance with the best standards, which are adequate for Serbia, but which are also in the context of the European Union. We want a law which will regulate that field in the best manner possible, and we organized a work group in which many experts will participate. Ministry of Culture also participated, and we had a really nice cooperation with them. There are many problems and priorities in this country, of course, so we waited a bit for the law to reach its term, but the Government finally acknowledged the law proposal, and it was referred to the Assembly. In a few months we expect it to be passed“.
BCIF conducted a research on philanthropy in Serbia on the topic of which Ksenija Graovac, Philanthropy Program Manager, spoke: “Through this research we realized that the people need to be shown where it could be given out. We cannot always expect the people to recognize the need themselves, someone may do it, someone may have been doing it for the entire life, but it needs to be said out loud what is the expressed need – whether the sick, the children with special talents, the disabled. Somewhere where a need is clearly expressed that something can be given there and something changed as well. A certain transparency also needs to be built up, that is for the people to be sure what happens to their money. The research showed that people are really concerned about what actually happens to the money they give. This research of ours had taken place before the latest affairs, so certain results may have been different today, because every negative change has a great influence. It is important that there is a clear readiness of the citizens to give, and that those same citizens simply want the encouragement and the clear mechanism for the giving, and the transparency on what happens to their money“.
The complete "In the Centre of Attention" show may be heard here:
