Over 400 meals for Skopje residents in need on the Day for the Eradication of Poverty: What does the city do the other 364 days?

To mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Skopje mayor Orce Gjorgjievski, together with Toni Stankovski, president of the association Ljubeznost ("Kindness"), handed out more than 400 meals to Skopje residents in need of support. The mayor also joined Father Oliver's stand and took food to the points run by the humanitarian organisation St. Spas.

"Every person deserves dignity, respect and the certainty that they won't be left alone in hard times," Gjorgjievski said, thanking Stankovski, Father Oliver and the volunteers of Ljubeznost and St. Spas. He also stressed that solidarity and care for people in difficult situations should be an everyday obligation, not just a symbolic gesture to mark a particular day.

It's hard to disagree with that sentence - and that's exactly why it says the most. The weight of this work is carried by the volunteers of Ljubeznost, Father Oliver and St. Spas - the people who, as the mayor himself said, invest "time, effort and love to help". The question is what the city does on the other 364 days: how much budget it sets aside for soup kitchens and for the associations feeding the most vulnerable, and whether support for them is systemic or depends on what day it is on the calendar.

For those who received them, more than 400 hot meals are no small thing. But the real measure of a city, in Gjorgjievski's own words, is the care it shows for its people - every day, not just on 17 October.