Around 1,400 children in BiH live without parental care

(Patria) - In Bosnia and Herzegovina, around 1,400 children live without parental care, and most of them grow up in institutions.

Therefore, it is necessary to promote foster care and kinship care as a model that provides an optimal family environment for the growth and development of children, writes BHRT.

Guided by these statistics, SOS Children's Village decided that kinship care should become a key part of their expansion strategy in BiH, with the aim of giving as many children as possible the opportunity to grow up in a family environment.

Although providing a home for children without parental care brings many beautiful moments, the path to it is not always easy. Many give up due to a lack of information about the guardianship process itself.

However, those who persevere say it is all worth it. Among them is Adrijana Markotić, who proudly talks about her experience today.

- I currently have one girl and one boy fostered for seven months, and I can tell you it's a wonderful experience. The love you receive from these children is immense, and I would warmly recommend everyone to try foster care if they don't want adoption, because there are so many children in our homes who are just waiting for a warm embrace and a home where they will live for a long time - says Markotić.

To ensure that as many children as possible have the opportunity to live in a family environment, SOS Children's Villages have started opening support centers for kinship care.

- This year we opened one, or rather, at the end of last year we opened one in Sarajevo, one in Tuzla, and we plan to open one in Zenica and Bihać in November.

And then, with the new year, one in Mostar and Travnik, so that we would cover the capacities in the Federation of BiH at this moment, and after that, we plan to expand to the Brčko District and Banja Luka by opening new centers - says the director of SOS Children's Villages BiH, Malik Garibija.

The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Social Welfare of HNK, within the legislative reform of social protection, recognized placement in a foster family as one of the key services, and with the new law, it introduced a series of improvements, including an increase in allowances for foster parents.

- The allowance for foster parents per foster child was 189 KM, and now it is 343 KM. For foster children, the allowance was previously 378 KM, and now it is 549 KM per foster child, which represents a significant increase and places us at the top of the FBiH in terms of these allowances - said the secretary of this Ministry, Adna Hanić-Zalihić.

If families are not ready to open their doors to children without parental protection, the number of children in homes will not decrease. A child does not seek a perfect home, but security - perhaps you are the person who can provide it.