Over 200 convicted persons in the Penal Correctional Institution (PCI) in Sremska Mitrovica have donated more than 235,600 dinars for the production of over 16,000 multi-use protective masks for all first-, second-, third- and fourth-graders of the local primary schools. Deputy Mayor Svetlana Milovanović thanked the PCI for its donation and confirmed that the masks would be distributed to the schools as of the following week, with each schoolchild to receive five masks.
The convicted persons working in PCI’s tailoring workshop had decided for themselves to start this initiative — named Donate a mask to a schoolchild — and to give up their wages so that the necessary materials could be purchased for them to produce the masks. The tailoring workshop hires 30 convicted persons who had completed certified tailoring training, with the rest of the convicted persons hired for work elsewhere in the PCI having joined the initiative by donating their wages or other personal resources.
By way of a reminder, at the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, the convicted persons in the PCIs in Sremska Mitrovica, Niš, Zabela, and the PCI for Women in Požarevac began sewing up to 6,000 protective masks per day for the respective PCIs’ employees, prisoners and detainees across all institutions, to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. This mask production has been running to date.
Additionally, some 4,700 convicted persons across the largest PCIs in the country (including the abovementioned and that in Novi Sad) had on their own accord forewent one dry meal a day in favour of the poorest local residents. A similar humane gesture was that of the 174 convicted persons in the PCI in Požarevac donating 122,000 dinars towards the treatment of sick children in Serbia, by waiving a portion of the one-time state aid of 100 Euros per citizen to help mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Prior to the pandemic, in 2018 the convicted persons and the employees in the PCI in Niš donated funds for the procurement of a portable baby incubator — a piece of medical equipment crucial for the survival of new-borns.