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HOME CARE
The idea to initiate the Home Care program was born in ’92, with the beginning of the aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina during which numerous old and ill people lived alone in besieged Sarajevo. The medical team of the newly established Jewish community infirmary through home visits began taking care for their health and wellbeing. The “Bohorete” women section voluntarily visited these helpless, ill and bedridden people, bringing them water, humanitarian aid and medicine, “Bohorete” gave them a sense of security while making them believe that they are not alone and abandoned. Soon after the project started we began receiving material help, first of all from the American Joint Distribution Committee. A team of women which were left unemployed due to the war asked “La Benevolencija” for help and they underwent healthcare training. They provided aid to all those who were in need, regardless to their national or religious background.
Already in the beginning of 1993 sister-organizations to “La Benevolencija” began forming around Europe which resulted in the creation of a network of organizations know as “Friends of La Benevolencija” and they operated from Holland, Germany, Switzerland, England, France, Austria, Belgium and Italy. “Friends of La Benevolencija” collected all forms of aid, and with significant financial donations they participated in all humanitarian programs and projects organized by “La Benevolencija”. These donations enabled us to purchase food for family-packages and the Community Kitchen, and also medical equipment and most importantly medicines which were distributed both in three pharmacies operated by “La Benevolencija” and clinics and hospitals around Sarajevo. During the ’92-’95 period, and thanks to our donators, “La Benevolencija” managed to supply 48% of all medicaments which entered the city.
The financial support for the “Home Care” program and respectively the “Aid for Old and Ailing” program was of utmost significance. As the end of the war approached the donations were becoming fewer and fewer, and since 2007 the program was financed only by JOINT and “La Benevolencija Deutschland”.
In the last three years the main contributor to the “Home Care” project is and “La Benevolencija Deutschland”. Our friends and benefactors from Germany through their magnanimous donations helped us continue our humanitarian work to the utter satisfaction of us and the individuals we aid, as well as the social-work centres with which we cooperate in providing aid to the old and ailing. Without the help we receive from “La Benevolencija Deutschland” this highly important project would have ceased to operate three years ago.
Home Care project is intended for individuals above the age of 65. In most cases these are individuals who are chronically ill, partially or completely immobile, and old individuals who live alone and far from their beloved ones.
Since the project started we assisted over 1000 individuals and over 60 nurses helped achieve this.
Today, the Home Care program aids 126 individuals and employs 15 nurses. Since 2000 the program in addition to Sarajevo also operates in Mostar, Zenica, Doboj, Banja Luka and Tuzla.
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