Persons with mental health difficulties are amongst groups which are socially most at risk in Serbia. Although mental illnesses are second in our country by the number of suffering persons, public and civil sectors are not working on this issue enough. One of the “Prostor’s” main goals since 2011 is to improve the economic situation of psychiatric care users.
People with mental health issues are mainly unemployed and don’t have any sources of income. There is also the problem of their employment because of stigmatization and rejection by their immediate social environment, and by the society as a whole. By actively including the psychiatric care users in the activities in the community, encouraging independence, strengthening their personalities, and including them in daily life routines, we can give our contribution to their individual recovery, their family relations have a chance to improve, members of the general society are being informed, and all this with the aim of a permanent change of the wrong perception about this socially vulnerable group.
With this form of cultural activity in the community we can help people who have difficulties with finding employment and with getting social services they need. Economic strengthening of persons with mental health difficulties is an innovative idea, a new way for our psychiatric care users to, partly at least, solve some of the various problems they encounter, economic and social, and to do so through their own work and in their own community. This way both social benefits and social integration of one vulnerable group are being achieved.
