We are contacting you here purely to see and make sure if anything has changed in Nikšić? It is here in our shared house. The stork visited us three more times and brought us food Darius, Angelo i Jacob... and no children's playground in sight. We repeat the request from (almost) two years ago with one piece of information for you: if you find one residential building in Nikšić (with 35 or more apartments) with more children under the age of seven per tenant, feel free to build a children's playground for them. We responsibly claim that we are the richest residential building with children in Nikšić and that it deserves all the attention and praise from the management of our city.
This is stated in the letter sent by the tenants of three buildings in Nikšić's Ruda Polje to the local administration.
They sent the letter after the previous government did not listen to their request and the children did not get a playground instead of an unkempt meadow, which often looks like a landfill.
The current local administration replied that, after receiving information from the authorities about previous activities, if there were any, they would inform them about further steps, as well as that the construction of the playground, due to the large number of children, would be the focus of their work. Two years have passed since then, there is still no playground, and storks are still "visiting" the aforementioned neighborhood, so the newest tenant was born a few days ago.
"There are a lot of buildings, but we don't have any playgrounds, any training grounds for children. Previously, there was a landfill that was cleaned, but the ugly habit remained and the residents of the surrounding houses throw rubble here. Since 2019, we have been addressing the authorities to create modest conditions for our children to play, and to this day we do not have any concrete answer for the playground. They came a couple of times, allegedly cleaned the area, but nothing," he says Sanja Manojlović while watching the play of her daughter and her friends with a watchful eye.
Their building, she says, is certainly one of the richest buildings in the city - they have about 40 children, and the number is increasing year by year. They are happy that they do not have a problem with the birth rate and look forward to each new member of the common house.
Thanks to the children, says Sanja, their neighborhood is an example because the parents also get along well, and the little ones "constantly inspire" the adults to come up with new ideas, so they decorated the entrance with flowers, as well as photos and artwork of their children.
"There is a small exhibition of them in the entrance, which is updated every year. There are also their photos, because every year they go to school," says Sanja, not without pride.
Her neighbor Zoran Djukic he remembers when Rudo Polje was a real picnic spot, when there were training grounds instead of buildings.
"As a boy, I used to come there for trips and football matches. A decade of construction resulted in the construction of 24 buildings, and not a single sports field or children's playground. Someone should take this into account and initiate a procedure to meet us. When those 24 buildings were built, there were two training grounds here," says Zoran.
He is glad that certain neighborhoods got good training grounds and playgrounds and hopes that this practice will continue, but he believes that the children from Rudo Polje deserve better conditions - a playground instead of a neglected meadow.
"The entire settlement has about 5.000-6.000 people, and that's over a thousand children who would be at the training ground. They would spend hours playing and socializing there, and would not be on the phone. We know that children spend time on the phone, and perhaps one of the reasons is that there are no such playgrounds. In the past, every settlement in Nikšić had its own basketball court, football training ground, and playground. That got lost. If we allow three or four more buildings to be built on this area, our children will go directly from the apartment to the street. They won't be safe, and they will have limited space to play and have a safe childhood," Đukić points out.
They don't lack imagination
When they saw the reporters, the little ones stopped playing because they too had something to say. However, the playground they fantasize about is theirs.
"We play here, socialize, and it would be even nicer if we had a part where we could all gather. I don't like that the grass is big and we can't play here much. I would like to have swings, see-saws and everything interesting here," she says Hristina.
To her friend Andrija the uncut grass is particularly eye-catching, and he has already designed some of the furniture.
"I would like to have a slide, swings, swings, a school, maybe a field for football and basketball."
Davor he has even greater desires. After all, this is the age when desires should be big. He would like a small stadium or an adventure park to "sprout" instead of a meadow.
"It's great with my friends, but I would like to have a playground where we could all hang out and play. Here, someone always gets cut or injured on the pallets, falls into the big grass, and we are also afraid of snakes. I would like to have a playground, and in it there would be a see-saw, a see-saw, a slide, swings, merry-go-rounds", she enumerates. Maja.
And while she is three years old Andjela took the microphone to change the "Vijesti" team, her older friends saw us off by asking when they would get the playground, thinking that the journalists could "finish" it for them right away.
Really, when will they get the playground they deserve?
They announce the construction of a kindergarten with a playground
"It was planned to install a playground, but the president of the municipality, due to the need to increase the capacity of the kindergarten 'Dragan Kovačević', ordered that a project be made for a new kindergarten that will be on that location and within which there will also be a playground for children, which would solve both problems was solved in that part of the city", says the response of the local administration.
They point out that one of their priorities is the reconstruction of existing and the construction of new playgrounds throughout the municipality, and they remind that "they arranged a playground in the main city park according to the most modern standards and with the necessary furniture", that, in cooperation with Elektroprivreda, they built a park near Krupački jezera, as well as that several sports fields were reconstructed, among which they singled out the fields in Ćemenci and Oštrovac.
"Tenders are currently being announced for the playground and sports field in the Old Town, as well as for the park behind the 'Desetka' building, in the neighborhood across from the Hospital," announced the local administration.
Little ones from Rudo polje will still dream of a playground. Some of them will outgrow those dreams, but it is to be hoped that the storks will not forget the mentioned neighborhood and that some new kids will get a playground instead of a neglected meadow.
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