We’re teaming up with UNICEF and Halo Beba to aid parents in Serbia

As announced this week, we’re partnering with UNICEF Serbia to build an app that will help guide parents through their children’s early development. The app will be an extension of the Halo Beba service, which already offers free assistance to parents via phone and email. The project is part of ongoing efforts to boost early child development in the country.

Wait, aren’t you a gaming company?

We exist to make people happy and give the world more champions. In pursuing this goal, we’re guided by more than just business success and profits. While making games is our number one passion and our core business, of course, it also enables us to give back to the community. In this case, we want to help each child have a fair start and grow into a healthy, happy, loving adult.

The little ones deserve better

Early childhood is a crucial stage of development for a child’s future wellbeing and learning. Research has shown that half of a person’s cognitive potential is developed by the age of four!  Interventions during this sensitive period can have a lasting effect on the person’s intellectual capacity, personality and social behavior. On the other hand, failure to invest in early childhood development can inhibit the optimal development and performance of children throughout their lives.

Findings from a qualitative research in Serbia have shown that:

• almost 20% of children did not get all their vaccinations on time,
• close to 30% of children under 5 years old do not have adequate nutrition,
• 64% of children from the poorest families have less than 3 children books at home.

How do we get there?

Since 2015, we’ve been working with UNICEF to try to find ways to tackle these issues. Over the last two years, we’ve helped equip six childhood development counseling offices across Serbia. This has led to the training of an additional 216 healthcare professionals, enabling access to childhood development services to more than 19,000 parents and 17,000 children. And we’re not going to stop there.

The Halo Beba (Hello Baby) app will help parents find up-to-date information and advice on their child’s development, nutrition and care. We’ll also help with the development of an e-platform for the training of home visit nurses.

Hello Dads

Alongside financial support, three of our employees: Đorđe Đurđević – Software Engineer, Marko Stojaković – System Engineer and Mladen Marković – User Research Manager (superdads and users of the Halo Beba phone service themselves) will be providing their expertise in designing these platforms. Since we’ve had somewhat of a baby boom in Nordeus since 2015, they’ll also be reaching out to others at the office for parenting experiences, knowledge, and “horror” stories!  

Marko Stojakovic said: “I am thrilled that I can provide my work expertise and experience as a dad to create an app that will enable parents to receive advice and information wherever they are. The Halo Beba service was of a huge help to me and my wife when we had baby emergencies. I am glad that I can be part of the team that will make that service even more accessible and useful.”

As we strive to achieve positive social changes in Serbia, we want to help each child get equal conditions and opportunities. We’re grateful to our partners, UNICEF and Halo Beba, for their efforts in helping drive this change. And last but not least, we’re grateful to our people for taking the time and effort to personally contribute to the cause. When we say we exist to create champions, this is exactly what we have in mind.