Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) Project Report – August 2020

Staff: Gordana Varcaković, Dina Vošanović, Miloš Popić, Sanjin Vošanović

Local volunteers: Adin Midžić, Merima Hidanović, Zorana Nemček, Nusreta Ferizagić, Diana Osmić, Borjana Stjepanović, Marija Toljević, Jovana Lukić, Mlađana Borojević, Ahmed Avdić, Predrag Jovanović, Semina Hadžić, Nejra Ibrišimović, Majida Hasković, Katarina Mirković

‘Weltwearts’ volunteers: Lydia Luise Jung, Lana Fuchs

‘EVS/ESC’ volunteers: Dicle Girgin, Servet Bilmez

ON-GOING PROGRAMME

Culture and Art Diversity around the World – Includes Language, Art&Crafts, Music, Drama, and Sports workshops from Monday to Friday
- Standard and Conversational Language workshops – English, German
  - I love English – English workshops for children, teenagers and young people
  - “Lasstuns Deutsch sprechen!/Pričajmo njemački!“ (“Let’s speak German”) – German workshops for children, teenagers and young people
- Art&Crafts workshops – practical arts and crafts workshops for children and teenagers
- Music workshops – samba, guitar for children and young people
HIGHLIGHTS ON MONTH’S ACTIVITIES
- This month continued to be a month of restricting gatherings and activities and respecting epidemiological measures. Nevertheless, we managed to continue with activities outdoor because the weather was sunny and warm. Participants were happy to be together even though there were those who prefer to participate in online activities. Older participants and volunteers socialized in nature and prepared activities for summer camps. The arrival of new international volunteers in the second half of the month was greeted with enthusiasm, while our hardworking weltwärts volunteers brought their volunteering to an end by helping with online workshops. International volunteers have been doing a lot of different daily activities and they focused on different things (e.g. supporting online activities, promotion of the organization through social media).
- About 150 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) activities in August. Participants were aged between 4 and 40 years old. The youngest and the oldest participants attended Culture and Art Diversity around the World workshops and English/German workshops for adults.
  - Younger group – They made a small farm with various domestic animals, friendship bracelets, creatures from the world of imagination and a banner with the theme of tolerance. The group read stories and fairy tales: Ugly Duckling, Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, The Emperor’s new clothes and Tales from Lana’s farm. They learned Cyrillic letters B, G, D and the words that begin with these letters in local languages (Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian), maths and new words in English and German related to the beach, fairy tale creatures, fruits, clothes and tolerance. In the Music Workshops, they learned and practised the songs ‘Ten Angry Pirates’ and Number song from 1 to 10. The group also had the opportunity to learn about new musical instruments (shaker, tambourine and trumpet). This month, due to new participants, we held again the workshop on healthy habits. As part of our regular activities, this month we again paid attention to hygiene, where we emphasized the importance of maintaining hygiene with age-appropriate methods. Highlight with the younger group was the quiz ‘Under the sea’ with simple questions, adjusted to their age.
  - Older group – They made decorations for summer camps. In the Language Workshops, the group worked on speaking skills and daily conversation in English, German and Turkish. For the International Youth Day, they made a video, in which the older generation sent a message to young people. The highlight with the older group was the mine awareness training which was organised in cooperation with the EUFOR Lot.

ANNUAL EVENTS

Summer camps 2020 – Three camps took place from 24th to 28th August and Children’s Day on 29th August in the Youth Centre. Summer camps included Creative, Language and Music camps. Workshops were held every day from Monday to Friday and each workshop lasted 2 and a half hours. As epidemiological measures prohibiting the gathering of more than 20 people in one place are in force, the camps took place separately outdoor (20 participants at each camp). Children’s Day this year was a closed mini party because not many participants were allowed, during the day visitors socialized in 4 separate groups of 20 participants each. Yet, despite these limitations, we made an effort to have fun and enjoy this difficult time for everyone.
- Creative camp – The creative camp implemented 5 themes during the week: Under the sea, Orange Day, Animal Planet, Super Heroes and Green Planet. The participants of different ethnicities had a chance to work together in a neutral space, make different interesting art items from diverse and recycling materials and to learn about new interesting topics. The final result of the Creative camp activities was the exhibition and ecology quiz on the poster.
- Language camp – Participants of the language camp had the opportunity to attend workshops in English, German and Turkish. During the workshops, they learned and improved their vocabulary related to summer, household, clothes, sports and colours. They worked on the “Garden of Gratitude”, where the word ‘Thank you’ is written in several foreign languages in the shape of a flower. It was a nice change from everyday routine for everyone and it was very dynamic and motivating for participants.
- Music camp – In the first half of the week, participants were mainly playing on samba instruments, creating and composing their own composition out of short musical ideas and rhythmical motifs. The composition was named “Call of Beauty”. In the middle of the week recording process was started, along with writing lyrics on the question “How bread is made?”. Before writing lyrics the technique of group brainstorming was used to start to write first lines. Participants were encouraged to think of not just ingredients for the dough but the whole process (from preparing the land and seeding grains to baking and getting a final eatable product). The accent was on the human mind as an initiator in this process, along with work and cooperation amongst groups of people and individual’s trough many generations. Using stock footage video following audio was made and posted on Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) official Facebook page:
  https://www.facebook.com/omladinska.svitac/videos/226253055493680
- Children’s Day – Children’s Day was held on 29th August outside the Youth centre. The program started at 12:00 and parents and friends of the camps’ participants were able to see what they learned in the previous 5 days of the camps. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) team has planned a mini party for the participants, their siblings and parents. Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) music camp recorded and performed the song “How is bread made”. The Creative camp’s participants have presented the five topics they have been working on and had an exhibition of art items with beautiful decorations. The Language camp sang a song about ten angry pirates and did posters to present their week of learning. During the day all visitors were able to play various competitive games, to experience face painting and got nice and useful presents for school during Bingo (tombola). Red Cross donated 100 face masks for summer camps’ participants.

Total participants summer camps: 60

Total participants Children’s Day: 80

EVS/ESC, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

In August, Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) very much appreciated collaboration with 4 international volunteers: two ‘Weltwärts’ volunteers from Germany and two EVS/ESC volunteers from Turkey.

MEETINGS and PRESENTATIONS

Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) staff continued to attend regular monthly meetings with the youth centre coordinator and the other NGOs based in Brčko. The purpose of the last meeting was to discuss conditions and schedules for the continuation of centre activities.

Categories:

Activities