Blind association in Bitola seeks to stay in Kole Lacheto resource centre
Association says it rebuilt and equipped the space with donations; municipality notified them on 25 February 2026 that temporary use ends but councillors say they will share the object with parents' centre.
The Association of the Visually Impaired and Blind of Bitola is asking the municipality to allow it to remain in rooms of the Kole Lacheto urban community that were allocated for free use in 2018 and which the association, using domestic and foreign donations, converted into a Regional Resource Center for the blind.
The group attended the most recent Municipal Council session, where councillors reviewed a proposal to grant a five‑year business‑use agreement for space in the same urban community to the Resource Centre of Parents of Children with Special Needs, Branch 2 Bitola.
In a letter the association received on 25 February 2026, the municipality states that the association's right to temporary use of the premises is terminated and that they are obliged to hand over the facility, together with all equipment found there, to the municipality within 10 days of receipt of the notice, with regulated utility charges. The letter adds that the space will be reorganised by the municipality and that the association may use it under different conditions and rules to be determined later.
Local leaders say they will not be evicted
The Municipal Council stated during the session that it does not intend to evict the association, but plans to share the premises with the parents’ resource centre.
"We received a notice that we must hand over the centre. We have to move out of there. As a non‑governmental non‑partisan organization we are not against anyone from the Council and the Municipality, they have always accommodated us, and now we want them to accommodate us. It is our place for socialising, chatting, exchanging opinions. Among us there are even 100 percent blind persons, they learned to read Braille, we play chess, we have the chess club '4 November'. We made the place from scratch, that Local Community was in decay. It was equipped for our needs with a kitchen, toilet, a ramp for entry of blind people. And it's surprising how this came about now. We are not a problem for the other associations either," says Dragche Brdarovski, president of the Association of the Visually Impaired and Blind of the Municipality of Bitola.
Photo: SDK.MK)
