Help for Bosnia and Herzegovina

We have been providing assistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina for 20 years. If low-income families need support, we are ready: We create housing and income opportunities and help people to take their lives into their own hands (again).

Hilfswerk International has been working as an aid organization in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1996. At that time the reconstruction after the Bosnian war was the focus of our help. Since then, we have been able to help people to a better life in dignity with different projects. The Hilfswerk International Team in Sarajevo currently has 19 employees and is headed by the long-term director Suzana Jasarevic.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we help socially vulnerable families, Roma and other minorities, children with disabilities and economically marginalized people on their way to a better future. In the last two decades, we have reached more than 16,000 people in 95 municipalities, including the self-managed district of Brčko:

However, affordable, subsidized housing is not a reality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We therefore promote the social housing construction with which we have had such good experiences in Austria. This promotion can give families a roof over their heads and thus stability in life. So far, 5000 residential units and 22 houses with 210 apartments have been renovated and newly built for socially weak families.

That is why we are committed to people who are facing nothing. Financial contributions allow families to stand on their own. To date, we have been able to award 7800 grants and create more than 150 new jobs through the support of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

They still struggle with exclusion. For this reason, we support Roma families and help them integrate into society through the creation of housing possibilities, job training and consulting. Not only the adults benefit from this but also the future generations through the special support of children. 

Many of these returnees and internally displaced persons suffer from uprooting and live in terrible conditions – they depend on help. Hilfswerk International helps them to social integration. We also support them in becoming economically and financially independent. We provide financial support to companies that employ displaced persons and returnees and thus enable a life of dignity and self-determination.

In addition to renovating a sports hall in Derventa, building a new gymnasium for a primary school in Vogosca and renovating schools all over the country, we have also been able to renovate and furnish a retirement home and improve the gynecological department in a hospital in Brčko.