The topic of this year’s conference titled “We Grow As One – We Are Better Together" was inclusion and promotion of the position of children with developmental disabilities.

The student parliament session was opened by the National Assembly Speaker and Chairman of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, MA Nebojsa Stefanovic who, on the occasion, told the students that inclusion is a very important subject which means respect of others, primarily those who are different than us. Respect is a skill that can be learned, and showing respect to others means entering the world of adults, said Stefanovic. Speaking of the work and authority of the National Assembly, Speaker Stefanovic stressed that the MPs’ task is to provide possibilities for adequate schooling and life of children by passing laws, and sent the message to the high-school students present that interrelations between peers should be based on mutual understanding and tolerance.

In the plenary part of work, chaired by Drazen Zacero, student parliament activist, the assembly was addressed Ljubica Beljanski Ristic, President of the Executive Board of the association Friends of Children of Serbia, Iva Erakovic, Secretary of the Association, and participants of the We Are Better Together campaign. They spoke of the legal obligation to include children with developmental disabilities into the regular school system, the advantages of inclusion and its application in schools and the problems children with developmental disabilities face in every day life. The participants were also addressed by representatives of children with developmental disabilities who spoke of the importance of inclusive education and peer assistance, and lack of employment potentials after schooling is completed.

Milan Ilijin, Director of the association Friends of the Children of Zemun, spoke with the students in the working part of the session, and presented the youth workers’ Code of Conduct which contains ethical and professional principles for working with the youth. The representative of the Institute for Improvement of Education, Smiljana Grujic, spoke of the essence of inclusion, stressing that it is the child not the system that is in the focus of inclusion i.e. that the system should be adjusted to the child. In the ensuing discussion, the students had the opportunity to exchange opinions and experiences from their respective schools, speak of studying and interacting with children with developmental disabilities, as well as the pressure and lack of understanding from peers and teachers.

In the continuation of the session, the students, through interactive group work, exchanged opinions on the obstacles and potential of the inclusive education system and gave proposals of concrete actions which can be undertaken to ensure unimpeded school attendance for their peers with developmental disabilities. They also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of regular and special schools.

In the conclusion of the conference, the participants agreed that it is necessary to form inclusion teams following the peer principle within student parliaments, that the actions being implemented should actively include children with developmental disabilities, and that individuals can motivate concrete actions by their own activity, aimed at improving the position of children with developmental disabilities.

The student parliament session was attended by Konstantin Arsenovic, Prof. Dr Zarko Korac, Milica Dronjak, Meho Omerovic, Milica Vojic Markovic, Mirjana Dragas, Elvira Kovacs, Dubravka Filipovski, Dragana Mijatov and Slavica Saveljic, members of the National Assembly’s Committee on the Rights of the Child, then, representatives of the Council for Child Rights of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Policy, Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, and representatives of UNICEF and the High-School Students Union.