Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) Project Report – January 2020

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midžić, Merima Hidanović, Ines Močević, Almira Čehić, Zorana Nemček, Aldina Pezerović

‘Weltwearts’ volunteers: Lydia Luise Jung, Lana Fuchs

‘EVS/ESC’ volunteers: Hannah Luise Ursula Külper                

 


 

ON-GOING PROGRAMME

  • Culture and Art Diversity around the World – Includes Language, Art&Crafts, Music, Drama, and Sports workshops from Monday to Friday
    • Standard Language workshops – English and German
      • English – standard English language workshops for teenagers and young people
      • German – standard German language workshops for teenagers and young people
    • Conversational Language workshops – English, German
      • I love English – conversational English workshops for teenagers and young people
      • “Lasst uns Deutsch sprechen!“ (“Let’s speak German”) – conversational German workshops for teenagers and young people
    • Art&Crafts workshops – practical arts and crafts workshops for children and teenagers
    • Music workshops – samba, guitar, music workshops for children and young people
    • Sports workshops – for teenagers and young people
    • Drama workshops – for teenagers and young people
  • Local languages lessons (Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian) for international volunteers

HIGHLIGHTS ON MONTH’S ACTIVITIES

  • This month school started again and activities slowly returned to its regular routine after many holidays. Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) team started planning the cultivation of plants and vegetables for the garden along the Sava River as part of the “City Gardens” project. We are very pleased to be able to support our city and the creative young people who came up with this idea. Tree planting is planned for late February/early March when we will have a safe place and good weather on our side. International volunteers have also been doing a lot of different daily activities and they focused on different things (e.g. promotion of the organization through social media).
  • About 132 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) activities in January. 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 paper planes, train and traffic lights from toilet paper rolls. They learned to write and pronounce letters F, G and H in local languages (Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian), maths and new words in English and German related to seasons, animals and tolerance. The group read “The Tale of the Crawler”, “The Far Animal Kingdom” and the Story of the Importance of the Bees “Little Bumblebee Hildi”. In the Music Workshops, they learned a new song “Ivo’s train” and made little rattles. The group also had the opportunity to play together on various percussions and acoustic instruments. Highlight with the younger group was the workshop about care for the environment which was implemented through Puppet theatre.
    • Older group – They made shakers, the food pyramid and bee worksheets. In the Language Workshops, the group learned new words related to traffic, adjectives, verbs, peace and tolerance in English, German and Turkish. In the Music Workshops, the group played together at various acoustic instruments. The participants played a lot of volleyball, basketball and team spirit games. The highlight with the older group was an interactive workshop on “Peer Violence” when they exchanged experiences and highlighted this burning problem in BiH, the dangers and solutions and how it can be solved in their opinion.

EVS/ESC, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

  • In January, Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) very much appreciated collaborating with 3 international volunteers: two ‘Weltwärts’ volunteers from Germany and one EVS/ESC volunteer from Germany.
  • Sending EVS/ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ – Two volunteers from Bosnia are doing their EVS/ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ service in Germany and Slovenia (9 and 12 months).

MEETINGS and PRESENTATIONS

  • Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) representatives 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 share information about activities and plans for January and discuss activities scheduled to take place in the Youth Centre.
  • Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) staff joined online EdGE course for Omprakash Partners “Grassroots Changemaking”. The course will consist of 3 units that explore the following broad questions: how are progress and inequality related, and where do you fit in; what are the core problems and possibilities in the industry of international ‘development’ or ‘aid,’ and how can organisations navigate them; what are the ethical and practical challenges associated with hosting international volunteers, and how organizations confront these challenges; how can organizations use storytelling as a tool for social change. The course will run for six weeks and the main aim of the course is to give Omprakash Partners the platform where they can engage with one another on important topics relevant to their work.
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