23.01.2012.

Green Initiative members visited Belgrade’s settlement of Cukaricka Padina, where a majority of the residents work as individual raw material collectors, to commence with their preparatory activities on forming one out of the three social enterprises planned to be established through the project. The project seeks to set up three recycling-oriented social enterprises to help scrap collectors integrate into the legal waste management supply chain.

Through an informal conversation with residents of the settlement, Gordan Velev from Group 484 and Miso Babovic from Social Entrepreneurship Development Centre, accompanied by their business partners from Ekostar Pak and FHB Papir Servis, reached an agreement with residents to register all members of the settlement and to draft a detailed social assessment of the households. The identification of the social context is an important precondition to set in motion the other planned assistance programs for the residents.

The creation and development of social enterprises and their inclusion in the existing network of social entrepreneurship will contribute towards the legalisation process of the activities of individual collectors of secondary raw materials and their legal inclusion in the waste management supply chain.

The next meeting with residents of the Cukaricka Padina settlement is planned to take place in early February, when, based on the results of the registration process, the support program should begin.