28. Jun presented at the UN’s first ever World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul on May 23-24. We feel extremely lucky to have had 3 spots out of 2000 people invited, in a list which included UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Angela Merkel, the presidents, ministers and ambassadors of over 150 countries and the leaders of every large humanitarian organization in the world.

In what is without a doubt the biggest honor in the 5 year history of our young organization, 28. Jun was personally invited by Stephen O’Brien, United Nations’ Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. At the summit, 28. Jun spoke at two special sessions which dealt with the migrant crisis and connecting businesses with humanitarian work. We also met with Ban Ki-moon and Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and former Prime Minister of New Zealand. 28. Jun also attended a private screening of Sean Penn‘s new humanitarian-themed movie ‘The Last Face’ where we thanked him for not politicizing the conflict in the film like Angelina Jolie did in her anti-Serbian propaganda piece ‘The Land of Blood and Honey’.

Because 28. Jun was the only organization representing the Western Balkans at the summit, we also attended on behalf of the Red Cross of Serbia and the Serbian Ministry of Labour. In preparation for the summit, we met and consulted with Serbian Ambassador to the US, Djerdj Matkovic in Washington and Ambassador Dr. Ljiljana Niksic in Belgrade at the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During both days of the summit 28. Jun members wore traditional Serbian head wear and were approached numerous times by others in attendance who wanted to learn more.

For more information on 28. Jun’s humanitarian work over the past 5 years and to support, please visit: www.28jun.org

To our wonderful supporters:

As many of you have heard, the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava in Manhattan was completely destroyed by fire on Orthodox Easter.

The Church was a New York City landmark for generations; it hosted Nikola Tesla’s funeral service in 1943 and was visited by Patriarch Pavle in 1992. We at 28.Jun immediately reached out to Father Djokan Majstorovic and his son Savo and offered our support to help rebuild the Church, and we are pleased to announce that the church administration has accepted our offer of assistance.

Donations can be made at either https://28jun.org/#donate or http://stsavanyc.org. To the first 500 individuals to donate via 28. Jun’s website, we will ship a Brojanica bracelet, handmade in Kosovo, with all proceeds going to help rebuild the Church.

28. Jun has a special connection with the Church as they were the first to support our inaugural humanitarian project ‘Boj za Kosovo’ back in 2011. We had just successfully completed our Easter humanitarian project to rebuild the homes of three impoverished Serbian families, when we heard the devastating news. We now seek to put all of our efforts into helping rebuild another home, the spiritual home of the Serbian faith.

Please support us as we help rebuild this iconic center of Serbian culture and spirituality in North America: https://28jun.org/#donate

Our humanitarian campaign allowed for us to help the Stoijlković family (Radislav & Danijela, along with the children Anita, 22 & Nenad 13) by purchasing much needed food for them as well as desperately needed materials required for making their roof, which as you may remember was lost during a house fire. We were able to, thanks to your donations, purchase much needed material for Jevrem’s (disabled pensioner) house & roof, we were also able to purchase food for Jevrem. We would like to thank our volunteer Vesna Stojanović, from Leskovac for all of her hard work.

We would also like to advise you all and once again, thank all those who donated and supported our campaign to help Zlatibor & Dalibor, two refugee brothers from Krajina, who now live near Obrenovac. Our campaign has allowed for us to purchase the much needed material required for their house, which has until now been unlivable in, due to lack of insulation & other basic requirements. We will be making the delivery of materials on Saint George/Đurđevdan.