Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic met today with the Ambassador of Sweden Mr. Jan Lundin on the occasion of his visit to Nis. The direct reason for the visit of the Swedish ambassador is the preparation of the big music festival for children Serbia in the Rhythm of Europe that would be held in Nis in June. This music festival is jointly assisted by the embassies of European countries in Serbia, since each of the city participants represented a country from Europe by singing in the language of those countries. Serbia and Sweden have excellent diplomatic relations. There are a lot of Serbs living in Sweden. As a developed but primarily responsible country, Sweden is helping Serbia in its efforts to integrate into the European Union, and many projects of importance for infrastructure modernization are supported by Sweden. Two officials discussed the cooperation between two countries and especially the projects implemented in Nis and assisted by Sweden.

The contracts were signed today with grantees within the project “Support to Socio-economic Stability in the Western Balkan Region” implemented by the German organization Help. Through the allocation of grants in equipment, business and vocational training, networking and mentoring, project activities will contribute to economic empowerment of the target group, reducing poverty and increasing employment opportunities, using mechanisms to enhance the development of micro businesses in targeted cities and municipalities. The target groups of the project are startup, micro and small businesses, unemployed young people, women, national minorities, people with disabilities and less employable population categories. The overall goal of the program is to increase the capacity of economically and socially vulnerable groups of the population and their full involvement in society. The specific objectives of the program are to reduce poverty among economically vulnerable groups, increase access to the labor market of convicted and former convicted persons and better inclusion of Roma in society.