https://svitac.org

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midžić, Mira Božić, Merima Hidanović, Ranisović Nevena, Edna Čorbadžić, Anastasija Šarić, Melisa Bukvić, Amna Fazlović, Almira Čehić, Nataša Maksimović, Predrag Jovanović

‘EVS/ESC’ volunteers: Angela Claire Stoddard, Malcolm Thomas Lowe, Muhammed Fırat Dağ, Abdulsamet Kirmiziçiçek, Filip Bunović                

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ON-GOING PROGRAMME

• Culture and Art Diversity around the World – Includes Language, Art&Crafts, Music, Drama, and Sports workshops from Monday to Friday (4-14)
  • Standard and Conversational Language workshops – English, German
    • I love English – English workshops for 15-30
    • “Lasstuns Deutsch sprechen!/Pričajmo njemački!“ (“Let’s speak German”) – German workshops for 15-30
  • Music workshops – samba, guitar for 15-30

  HIGHLIGHTS ON MONTH’S ACTIVITIES

  • This month was full of activities, the weather was nice so most of the workshops were held outside. Since there were not many people infected with COVID-19, the measures were further relaxed, so it was possible to work in larger groups, which made the participants happy. It was clear that everybody was missing big gatherings, spending time and learning together in a comfortable and neutral space. We welcomed three international volunteers from Turkey and Slovenia, but we also said goodbye to Angela Stoddard from the UK. The Svitac team has created many diverse workshops with great topics to promote tolerance, peacebuilding and diversity. 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 145 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) activities in August. Participants were aged between 4 and 30 years old. The youngest and the oldest participants attended Culture and Art Diversity around the World workshops and English/German conversational workshops.
    • Younger group – They did robots of cardboard rolls, flying crepe paper dragons, sheriff’s badges, the Olympic torch, creative drawing and coloring with the help of a straw, fork and ear sticks. They learned about reptiles in BiH – venomous and non-venomous snakes, and watched a presentation about European countries, their customs and food. In the English, German and Turkish language workshops they learned adjectives of opposite meanings, colours and domestic animals. In the Music Workshops, they listened to songs appropriate to their age and tried to rap on basic beat rhyming simple words. Highlight with the younger group was a conversation about the future of their friends and what they would like to be when they grow up.
    • Older group –  They discussed the following topics: cultural differences between the UK, Turkey, Slovenia and BiH, plans for the future, hobbies and emotions. In this way, we want to provide young people with a safe and neutral space, where they can express their opinions and express positive and negative emotions, without fear of condemnation. In the Language Workshops, the group practised communication, grammar, reading, translating short texts and poems and worked on different projects and presentations. The Art of Storytelling group continued working on theatre acting, individual scenes that express emotions in the comedy, and dialogue writing. The highlight with the older group was recording a video message for International Youth Day.

ANNUAL EVENTS

• Summer camps 2021 – Three camps took place from 23rd to 27th August and Children’s Day on 28th 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.
  o Creative camp – The creative camp implemented five themes: Anime – a style of Japanese film and television animation, Collage – a celebration of diversity, the culture of Graffiti, Eco journey and Day of Children’s Rights. The participants, different ethnicities had a chance to learn and work in a neutral place and make different interesting and art items from diverse and recycling materials, but also to learn more about different cultures, diversity and other important topics.
  o Language camp – Participants of the language camp had the opportunity to attend workshops in English, Russian, Turkish and Sign language. The general topic was Holidays and international festivals around the world (winter, spring and summer break and traditional holidays). They talked about many religions and how people celebrate their important and special days, what gifts they exchange with each other, if they like travelling or not, things they normally pack in their suitcases when they travel, what kind of food they eat for these holidays and about favourite food, music and destinations. Volunteers also taught the participants some useful words and phrases in these languages.
  o 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 “Funky”. After that recording process started, along with writing lyrics. River, as a natural flowing watercourse, was the subject of a song. A lot of time was dedicated to audio and video editing throughout the week. Before every workshop, the group discussed and planned the upcoming activities and prepared materials, instruments and equipment for that day. After the workshop, there was a debrief meeting where they would sum up and reflect on what and how it was done.
• Children’s Day – Children’s Day was held on 28th August in 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. Music camp made a song and video “About the rivers” which was recorded and played for the audience and posted on Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) social networks. The Creative camp’s participants have presented the five topics they have been working on and had an exhibition of art items with beautiful and useful decorations. The Language camp performed three songs in English and did posters to present their week. All visitors were able to play various competitive games, to experience face painting and got nice and useful presents for school during Bingo (tombola).

Total participants summer camps: 75
Total participants Children’s Day: 120

EVS/ESC, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

• In August, Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) very much appreciated the collaboration with 5 EVS/ESC volunteers from UK, Slovenia and Turkey.
• Sending EVS/ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ – Ten volunteers from Bosnia are doing their service in Germany, Slovenia, Turkey, Croatia and Poland (2 – 12 months).

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 meetings was to discuss conditions and schedules for the continuation of centre activities.