https://svitac.org

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midžić, Merima Hidanović, Ines Močević, Aldina Pezerović, Almira Čehić, Mehmed Hidanović, Leo Burkanović, Ivan Boroja, Dijana Živković

‘Weltwearts’ volunteers: Florian Pauleck

‘EVS/ESC’ volunteers: Dominik Sujka, Nadine Breitenbücher

Omprakash volunteers: Kathleen Kohler                 

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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
  • 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 language lessons for international volunteers

HIGHLIGHTS ON MONTH’S ACTIVITIES

• This month passed very quickly despite the blazing hot temperatures which sometimes gave all of us a hard time. With more children attending now due to summer holidays, June was dynamic and a month full of planning, preparations and implementation of small ideas and projects. Series of workshops on the International Environment Day took place in the local Youth Center and the American Corner of the City Library. Under the title ‘Eco-Art Week’ there have been 5 workshops and events on the subject of photography/cinematography and environmental pollution. The main aim was to create, with the help of art, awareness of how bad littering is for the environment. In addition to a presentation, an “environmental photo tour”, a graphic design workshop and an art exhibition were held as a grand finale, in which the participants were able to present their pictures to the public. International volunteers have also been doing a lot of different daily activities and they focused on different things (fundraising, promotion of the organization through social media etc.).
• About 142 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) activities in June. 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 crabs, parrots, flowers and opossums out of cardboard rolls, cut out body parts out of paper and glued them together. They learned to write and pronounce letters J and K in local languages, maths and new words in English and German related to the body parts and animals. In the Music Workshops, they were practising a new song “Barimba-Babaroga” and repeated the songs they learned in previous months. The group also had the opportunity to play together on various percussions and acoustic instruments. Highlight with the younger group was workshop related to ‘World day against child labour’ when they coloured a worksheet with the message – stop the exploitation of children -.
  • Older group – They made patterns on paper using watercolours and various objects, created slime, painted with spray and did clay modelling. In the Language Workshops, the group learned new words related to comics, environment, peace, tolerance and practised small talk in English, German and Spanish. In the Music Workshops, the Karaoke day was organised and participants got the chance to sing songs on the sound system. At the dancing workshop, they started learning new choreography for Children’s Day. The participants played a lot of volleyball, basketball and team spirit games. The highlight with the older group was a workshop related to ‘World refugee day’ when they participated in an interactive play, in which they acted out the roles of a family that had to leave their home.

EVS/ESC, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

• In June, Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) very much appreciated collaborating with 4 international volunteers: one ‘Weltwärts’ volunteer from Germany, two EVS/ESC volunteers from Germany and one Omprakash volunteer from the USA.
• Visa process has been started for one volunteer from Germany.
• Sending EVS/ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ – Three volunteers from Bosnia are doing their EVS/ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ service in Germany (2 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 June and discuss activities scheduled to take place in the Youth Centre.
• Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) supported Georgina Whiteman, a researcher from the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, the UK, in the field of youth livelihoods and youth entrepreneurship. She visited the organisation and run a focus group, gaining an understanding of what issues are affecting which regions, and the issues particularly affecting young people in BiH.
• Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) representatives attended a lecture on the topic of a professional military call. The lecture was held in American Corner of Brcko District by members of the military delegation of the US State of Maryland in the organization of Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC) of the US Embassy in BiH.