Commissioner for Protection of Equality Brankica Jankovic participated in the panel “Human Rights Champions: Elderly People and Volunteerism” held on the occasion of the International Volunteer Day, where she congratulated the volunteers their day and discussed possible ways of reducing discrimination through the work of volunteers and representatives of organizations for the protection of the rights of the elderly.

In our society, we traditionally have solidarity that is the essence of every volunteer work, better connecting of generations and mutual understanding, said Commissioner at the gathering. In response to problems that occured in practice as a result of existing volunteering regulations, which were presented in the discussion, Commissioner called on representatives of organizations that support greater involvement of the elderly through the volunteer work, to submit complaints to the institution of the Commissioner in order to conduct an analysis of these regulations and propose amendments that would facilitate their work, because the non-inclusion of elderly people in volunteering deprives significant resources from the society. Volunteers also pointed out cases of discriminatory treatment of emergency medical services to elderly patients, due to which Commissioner Jankovic announced an analysis of the regulations in order to give general recommendation of measures for achieving equality which would be addressed to all health institutions.

Among the participants of this panel were also Nataša Todorović from the Red Cross of Serbia, Nadežda Satarić from the association Amity, prof. Dr. Mile Milosavljević and prof. Dr Dejan Sumrak, volunteers, as well as other representatives of organizations dealing with social, health and legal protection of the elderly. The event was jointly organized by the UN Human Rights Team in Serbia, the EU Delegation to Serbia, the OSCE Mission to Serbia, the Council of Europe Office in Serbia and the Red Cross of Serbia in the premises of the EU Info Center, as part of the celebration of the Human Rights Week.