Wednesday the 27th of October 2010 – Inside of the City Hall building in the city of Nis, in the presence of the representatives of the city of Nis, the Commissariat for Refugees of the Republic of Serbia, International Organization for Migration and the non governmental organization, “Eneka,” contracts awarded to 49 beneficiaries, were ceremonially signed. The contracts intended to economically strengthen refugee and internally displaced persons and designed for the purpose of provisioning equipment, materials and other acquisitions necessary for the establishment of sole proprietorships. A total of 110 persons applied for the donation of these grants which in total were ascribed a maximum output of 1,500 euros per household.  The money was bequeathed to those individuals who offering the best business ideas.

The donation of these packages intended for the purpose of economically strengthening the specific, target group, is representative of one of the components of the Project, “Support to Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons,” and is being financed out of the resources of the European Union by means of the IPA 2008 fund, through which the resolution of the housing concerns and the economic strengthening of some 800 families of refugee and internally displaced persons in the Republic of Serbia is provisioned for.

The specific component of the project which refers to the economic strengthening of refugee and internally displaced persons in the city of Nis has been achieved through the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in cooperation with the organizations of, “Eneka,” and the Commissariat for Refugees of the Republic of  Serbia.

Seeing as the city of Nis which has 444 refugees in addition to some 10,500 internally displaced persons and represents one of the cities most affected by this crisis, the Commissariat for Refugees, as the beneficiary institution of the Project, has in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration, directed resource in the amount of 6,750,000 dinars towards the purpose of economically strengthening the refugee and internally displaced persons residing on the territory of the city of Nis.