A Serbian delegation of elected officials visited the Scenic City this week to learn more about revitalization and reaching out to marginalized populations.
They’re leaving today with plenty to work with.
“First of all, I come from 8,000 miles away and it’s a totally different country and we have a totally different set of problems and issues,” said Aleksandar Antic, president of the Belgrade City Assembly, through an interpreter. “But it was a really good experience to come here and see firsthand what you are dealing with and seeing that you had problems about 15 years ago that you’ve overcome.”
The four-member delegation of mayors and presidents from Serbian city and municipal assemblies is part of an international project sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Besides Chattanooga, the Serbians visited Washington, D.C., Seattle and New York.
During their visit in Chattanooga, among other things, the Serbians met with representatives of the Chattanooga City Council, the local chapter of the Urban League and visited La Plaza Comunitaria.
“Every delegation is different,” said Jim Frierson, vice chairman of the Chattanooga Green Committee, which developed the visitors’ itinerary. “In this case with Serbia, you are dealing with a still fragile democracy with real concerns about historic minorities, ethnic minorities that have been in the region.
“Their request was that we focus, first on the African-American population because that’s our historic minority, it’s been here as long as we’ve been a city,” he said.
But he also proposed to include the Hispanic population because of its rapid growth.
On Thursday, the group visited La Plaza Comunitaria — an initiative of Chattanooga State Community College and the Mexican government that teaches Hispanic immigrants elementary and secondary education in Spanish, as well as English classes. The trip gave the Serbians the chance to learn about a program that focuses on adult education.
Despite the differences, Mr. Antic said both countries share populations that want to prosper.
“What is common for both is that the people here and their families want to live better, want to have better education, better life for their families,” he said.
But Serbia still has a lot to learn, he said.
“Being that Serbia is in a location where people from different nationalities and religions live in, we still haven’t attained the level (of unity) that you are at,” he said. “We still have a problem of working together … and that’s something we need to work at.”
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