Marijana Djekovic was born in a small village near Vukovar, Croatia, from where she fled together with her mother and two sisters in 1991. They came to Zemun, Serbia, to their aunt’s, where they settled temporarily, but were continuously returning to Croatia to visit their father who had had to stay there. Finally, in 1997, all Serbs abandoned the village and moved to Serbia.

With the aunt’s help, they bought a small house for their mother in Smederevska Palanka, while the three sisters stayed in Zemun to finish school. Soon after, Marijana started working and met her husband Milan. Together, they moved to a village near Obrenovac, where Milan had a family house. During the big floods in the spring of 2014, the house was completely devastated, thus making Marijana homeless one more time.

Marijana and Milan had to move from one rented flat to another, with the three children they got in the meantime. Finally, in 2015, Marijana heard about the possibility to get a village house through the Regional Housing Programme and decided to apply. In summer 2016, their dream came true – they moved in an unfinished 50m² village house in Grabovac, near Obrenovac, and started renovating it to correspond to their needs, with the building material package received from the RHP. The ground floor is almost completed, and next year, they hope, the first floor will be ready for Mihajlo, Jovana and Jelena.

The Dekovic family also received a greenhouse from the Catholic Relief Services, as income generating support. They have a goat and plan to get a few sheep soon; the garden in which they grow vegetables for daily use is the joint obligation of all three children.

“We can now finally start a new life and start planning for the future. The smile on my children’s face says it all.”