Doctor of Law and proud father of four children, Dragan Dakić from Banja Luka, at the beginning of 2020, with a group of friends, started the implementation of the project “Cijena minus za 3+”. Basically, the goal of this project was to provide multi-member families with discounts from partners and businesses. So far, through his Foundation “Za porodicu/For Family”, he has included 6,000 families from Republika Srpska in the activities.
Author: Milkica Đurić; Photo: Milkica Đurić
Dragan Dakić’s scientific work is largely related to the issues that the Foundation “For Family” deals with in a different, activist way. As a profile researcher, he has often worked with foreign and domestic individuals and organizations. Experiences and good practices from Poland and Hungary, as well as some examples from Serbia, led to the fact that in 2020, with a group of friends, the realization of the project “Cijena minus za 3+” started.
“From the very beginning, the project was recognized as useful by public institutions. We received support from the Chamber of Commerce of Republika Srpska and the Regional Chamber of Commerce in Banja Luka. These institutions took an active part and called on businesses to join. The invitation they sent to businesses gave credibility to our project activities”, said Dragan.
Today, apart from the chambers of commerce, their most important partners are the local community, without which the project could not be realized. They cover the symbolic costs of the participation of local businesses in the project, who on that basis receive a free online store and other benefits. Multi-member families are given “Proud Cards”, on the basis of which they receive discounts.
“We are very satisfied with the cooperation with local communities, among which those with innovative and good practices stand out. There is, for example, Ljubinje, which exempted the holders of the Proud Card of RS from municipal administrative fees. The Berkovići enabled all holders of the Proud Card to have their children attend kindergarten for free, and the Municipality of Foča, with the Proud Cards, also distributed school backpacks,” Dragan emphasizes.
The main limitation is that their work is completely voluntary, and it is a project at the level of Republika Srpska, which requires a lot of time and sacrifice. Another problem in the organization and work of the Foundation is the non-inclusion of the City of Banja Luka in the project for the second year in a row.
“Our headquarters are in Banja Luka and we have proved that their support is not crucial here. But, the project itself would certainly gain in quality if this local community is included, and that is primarily in the interest of multi-member families”, emphasizes Dakić.
The essence of the Foundation’s activities is permanent and sustainable support to multi-member families. Therefore, an important segment in their activities is to support businesses who provide discounts. The Foundation strives to improve the social and economic status of this category in society, breaking the taboo on multi-member families as poor, and this project certainly succeeds, combining these two elements.
“In cooperation with partners, we are implementing activities to increase the competitiveness of families with 3+ family members in the labor market by providing them with favorable or free training for market-oriented occupations. We also try to provide trainings to children from these families for different kinds of professions, and enable them to attend programming or foreign language courses. In order to improve the economic status, in cooperation with partners, we implement employment activities for members of 3+ families, which is perhaps the most important part,” adds Dakić.
In order to inform users about where they have discounts, but also detailed support for entrepreneurs, they have developed an Android application: For family – Application on Google Play. As they state, they are very satisfied with the growth they achieved in the previous period. They managed to include 23 local communities, and the number of businesses is constantly growing. The pandemic has postponed their activities for a while, but they expect the continuation of growing trends in all fields soon, primarily the expansion of activities to Serbia.
“The number of registered families is currently over 6,000. We try to determine the advantages, but also the disadvantages of the project, through direct contact with the families. One of the shortcomings is the insufficient information of users living outside Banja Luka. In order to improve that, in addition to the Viber community, which has over 6,000 members, we will launch an SMS campaign for that purpose,” explains Dakić.
In an effort to help the development of domestic production, this foundation has developed an electronic platform “Proud Market RS”, which is designed as a business incubator for marketing goods and services of food and handmade producers from families with three or more children. It is a platform through which the products which are mostly in the so-called “StartUp” development phase are placed. As they state, they currently have around 50 active producers from this target group, most of whom are women.
Milijana Jović Milovac, who is a mother of three children, but also the owner of the Balkon Bašta brand, also talked about the importance of the Foundation for multi-member families. She states that connecting with the “Proud Market” project significantly helped her because with the production and sale of their micro plants, they became more visible on the market, and thus reached a larger number of potential buyers.
“If we take into account the average monthly income and the average costs for one month, it is clear that the savings achieved by using the Proud Card on a monthly basis are of great importance. On this occasion, I would like to invite all businesses to join this action, because in addition to helping families with three or more children, they are gaining a good base of potential clients who might spend their money elsewhere,” Milijana added.
Specially formed teams for provision of free legal, economic and agricultural support also operate within the Foundation. As they state, their legal team is their pride because everything is based on the enthusiasm of lawyers, which they hope will continue in the future. Behind them is a large number of cases, the most important of which are those related to assistance in settling alimony claims.
Since the day the Foundation was established until today, they say that there have been a lot of situations and events that have undoubtedly left an indelible mark. One of the most impressive was the gesture of a mother of five children, who stated that her two children received a city scholarship, and that they wanted to give it to someone from 3+ families who needed it.
“That is the moment that touched me the most because I am convinced that there is no family, especially a multi-member one, which the scholarships (regardless of the amount received) is not needed. At least as a pocket money for children. It was then that I saw kindness directly in action. This mother inspired the idea to start a “Student Endowment” – scholarships for students from 3+ families whose first donor was this mother,” Dakić emphasizes.
All of this was provided many moments for learning something new and gaining valuable experiences. Perhaps the main thing they have learned is that special attention must be paid to the choice of associates.
“It is ideal to surround ourselves with people who inspire us, and the least we have to do is surround ourselves with people who put our enthusiasm down,” Dakić said at the end of the conversation.
This text was created as part of the project “Free Media for a Free Society”, implemented by the Association BH Journalists and the Association of Electronic Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the financial support of the European Union. The content of the text is the sole responsibility of the Association “eTrafika.net” and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union.
