Serbia creates » Srbija stvara | 21 I van Br k l j ač, d i r ector of t he Po i nt of R e t urn progr amme Exchanging knowledge to reach newopportunities An idea that emerged from the crisis is the campaign 'Work from home - Work fromSerbia', which is intended for all our people in the diaspora whose employers allow them to work from home. Themission of the Point of Return programme is to provide members of the Serbian diaspora with information on all the ways to stay in contact with Serbia, as well as opportunities for gaining assistance and ensuring the circulation of information for individuals wanting to return to the country.We discussed the challenges faced during the previous year and the repatriation of our talented people, but also the goals of the period ahead, with programme director Ivan Brkljač. The Point of Return programme recently marked its first year of operations with the conference “Talent Online 3.0”. What are all the things that have been done to date? “This yearwas very complex and complicated for the whole world, so you can imagine how challenging it was for a young team that‘s just emerging. However, this kind of baptismof fire has strengthened our teaminmanyways, alsoenabling us to more quickly understand our capacities and be more committed to the people for whom we founded this initiative, and those are the members of our diaspora.Themost important thing for us in the first yearwas toestablishadirect channel of communication with our people who live all around theworld and to hear their ideas, suggestions, problems and challenges.When it comes to specifics, in the first year we had contactwithmore than6,000of our citizens who sought some form of assistance or adequate information fromus. Byproviding relevant information,webuildupourowncredibility among our people from abroad, as someonewho‘s available to them, in their service and at their disposal, while the conference “TalentGathering”, this year in the online version “Talent Online”, is just the crown on top of our work over the course of the entire year.” To what extent did the pandemic disrupt your plans, or did it - in conditional terms - inspire some new projects and campaigns? - For a start, during the state of emergency we placed all of our capacities at the disposal of our people who found themselves outside Serbia, in order to help them return to their home country as soon as possible. We were contacted by several thousand citizens in the first 20 days of the state of emergency, and we helped many of them return to their homeland at least a few days earlier, whichmeans a lot to people in such times of crisis. Apart from this, we are in the final stages of the researchproject “Mapping returnees during COVID-19”, which will help us form a more accurate picture of whypeoplereturnedandwhatmeasures would compel them to consider staying rather than re-emigrating. Thethirdideathatemergedfromthis crisis is the campaign “Work from home - Work from Serbia”, within the scope of which the Point of Return teamcreated a digital brochure detailing all the advantages ofworking fromSerbia for all our people in the diasporawhose employers allow them to “work from home”. Debates about circular migrations have been common recently. How important are such trends actually? “We live inanultra-modern, connected world in which the circulation of capital, resources and people is an everyday occurrence. It is truethat thecoronavirushasdisrupted all of that, but we hope that‘s all just temporary. In order for us to be part of that modern and connected world, when this pandemic passes, we must accept circular migration as something that‘s good and something thatwe should strive towards. Thedepartureandreturnof ourpeople can bring great benefits to our society as a whole, because people who go abroad to gain knowledge and experience can bring the skills they acquire back to Serbia andhelp ournational community togrowand becomebetter than itwas yesterday. Misija programa Tačka povratka je da pruži sve informacije / The mission of the Point of Return programme is to provide all information
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