Along with promoting Serb culture and identity, the work of the Serb National Council (SNV) is focused on fighting for civil rights, human rights, and national rights of the Serb community in Croatia.

The problems encountered by Serbs in Croatia predominantly stem from the past war of the 1990s. Since these issues have not been resolved for 20 years after the wars, along with promoting Serb identity and culture, the SNV’s work is focused on civil rights, human rights, and national rights of the Serb community in Croatia. Part of the work is focused on advocacy before relevant international and state institutions. Due to the specific character and volume of the work that we do, our activities are divided in several topical areas.

As the Serb self-government body in Croatia, the SNV actively participates in the processes that aim to speed up the reintegration of Serbs into Croatian society. To this end, and with the financial support from the UNHCR, we have established a legal framework through which we provide free legal aid. Activities are conducted through the network of our offices in Rijeka, Pula, Karlovac, and Daruvar. In this way, we enable direct communication with the users, which contributes to a speedy resolution of their problems. Our lawyers help users in resolving legal issues pertaining to housing care, status rights, right to pension, health care, social care, and the recognition of the length of service. In cooperation with other civil society organisations, we deal with issues of missing persons, war crimes, and discrimination based on nationality.

Since its inception, the SNV has also continuously been working on the development of returnee and underdeveloped areas. Apart from implementing specific projects, such as strengthening family farms by establishing cooperatives, our Centre for development engages with relevant institutions to create better legal grounds and secure funding for renovation and construction.

To educate activists and empower Serb institutions and organisations within which they operate, in 2008 we launched the Political Academy. It is a program of supplementary education for younger members of the Serb community through which we aim to encourage development of local communities, motivate youth, and prepare them for participation in political processes. We also conduct educational activities intended for children of preschool, elementary and secondary school age. Apart from the Cyrillic Alphabet through Play, a creative workshop for learning the Cyrillic alphabet, the Council of the Serb National Minority of the City of Zagreb participates in the Sava Mrkalj Summer School of the Serbian Language, and in organising trips for children and youth to the Vuk Karadžić Language Camp.

Regardless of their formally guaranteed rights, Serbs in Croatia still encounter numerous problems when exercising the right to education. To address this, we have established cooperations with representatives of government institutions, the civil sector and those who encounter problems in practice – parents, children and those employed in the schooling system.

The SNV also systematically handles the commemoration of anniversaries and maintenance of memorial sites dedicated to the victims who perished in the Second World War. Also, in cooperation with county, city and municipal councils, every year we commemorate the suffering and exodus of Serbs in the war of the 1990s.

Although the protection and reconstruction of monuments is one of the key prerequisites for the reaffirmation of the contemporary cultural identity of Serbs in Croatia, thus far, barring a few exceptions, the current institutional practices have failed to develop mechanisms for its protection. For this reason, we also work on identifying and documenting the encountered state of affairs, and on advocacy for the reconstruction process. We also support various memorial interventions, public remembrance of noteworthy historic events and historic personalities which occurs in publicly visible space.

Apart from the Archive of Serbs, which we established in 2006 in cooperation with the Serbian Cultural Society ‘Prosvjeta’, the SNV has initiated its publishing activity, guided by its main activities of protecting human and minority rights and preserving our cultural identity.

Our publishing activities include periodical publications with the aim of informing not only the Serb community, but also the public at large and the institutions tasked with working towards a comprehensive resolution of problems. Since December 1999, the SNV has been publishing the weekly Novosti which also has an online edition. We issue the Bulletin, a periodic publication presenting the main problems encountered by Serbs in Croatia, each issue with a different thematic focus.