FEBRUARY AT SVITAC (FIREFLY) – volunteer’s blog
February here at Omladinska organizacija Svitac (Firefly) was a short and exciting one. After a very successful month in January, February only got better (and colder!). This month we celebrated not one but two special international days: World Day of Social Justice and World Day of Mother Tongue. International volunteers and participants were able to celebrate them together through special workshops!
To start the month off we worked on the theme of love and friendship for Valentine’s Day. Participants created cards for their loved ones as part of the creative workshops. We also worked on the theme of emotions (happy, sad, excited, etc.) and question starter (Why, who, what, etc.) in not only local language but also in English!
World Social Justice Day was celebrated here at Svitac (Firefly) through creative workshops with both groups participating. Social justice, respect, equality and teamwork were all discussed and celebrated. Our younger participants took part in colouring worksheets on the theme of equality and empathy by asking themselves, “Is it fair that we all have winter boots and warm jackets and that there are children on the streets without them?”. Our older participants discussed how social justice can be achieved in our own country and how they could help.
We had a very “international” month here at Svitac (Firefly) with so many new volunteers coming together and teaching us about the diverse languages they speak. All this came together perfectly on World Day of Mother Tongue where we held workshops on the languages spoken by the international volunteers and also teaching about the importance of language in everyday life. With our younger participants, we built words in different languages together with cut out letters. Our older participants were shown videos on languages spoken around the world and the importance of language in our daily life. We were very excited to also participate in a special event hosted by BZK Preporod Brčko where we hosted a workshop called “Four Languages”. Manja, Kim, Camila and Hanna, our international volunteers/interns taught workshops on English, German, Spanish and French to the participants. Number, describing yourselves, basic greetings were taught with fun group activities. We once again thank BZK Preporod Brčko for this opportunity!
This month we were also very excited to welcome two new volunteers from Seattle (USA) Jessica and Kirby! They will be here for 2 months total and will be working in the youth centre with us. We are looking forward to have them participate and help in our daily activities! Dobrodošli (welcome)!
As always watch this space to see what fun and exciting activities March will bring. Please remember to keep in touch for more on Svitac (Firefly) and all that we do by continuing in reading this blog or by following us on Facebook (Omladinska Organizacija Svitac), Twitter (Svitac_BiH) and Instagram (svitacbrcko) for more regular updates!
Hvala puno! (Thank you very much!)
Camila Catalan-Munoz, Svitac (Firefly) intern
