https://svitac.org

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midžić, Merima Hidanović, Ines Močević, Aldina Pezerović, Nadia Selimi, Almira Čehić

‘Weltwearts’ volunteers: Florian Pauleck, Fabia Stroetmann

‘EVS/ESC’ volunteers: Halil Kutlu, Halil Bodurer, Dominik Sujka                  

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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, Turkish
    • 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
    • Let’s speak Turkish – conversational Turkish 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 was very significant. Firefly International celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a wonderful celebration held at the Edinburgh University, attended by representatives of Svitac (Firefly Bosnia). Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) international volunteers were asked to talk about their voluntary service in the local high school. 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 135 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) activities in March. 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 dinosaurs, peace knights, their names in colours, space ship models, paper flowers and rockets. They learned to write and pronounce letters Dž, Đ and E in local languages, maths and new words in English and German related to body parts, hobbies and anti-racism. They learned a new song “Kad si sretan (When you’re Happy)” in local language, and then had an opportunity to play on different musical instruments. Highlight with the younger group were workshops when they read stories “Itsy bitsy spider”, “Mač u kamenu (The Sword in the Stone)” and „Peter Pan“ in local and English languages..
  • Older group – They made faces in different styles and emotions, flower pots and designed personal coats of arms. In the Language Workshops, the group learned new words related to emotions, antiracism, tolerance and practiced small talk in English, German, Spanish and Turkish. In the Music Workshops the group wrote a song about their time in Svitac (Firefly Bosnia), listened to various music genres, and in the end they became familiar with the classical music. The participants played a lot of volleyball, basketball and team spirit games. The highlight with the older group was a workshop related to International day of happiness when they had a presentation about self-care and ways to deal with stress.

ANNUAL EVENTS

• Anti-racism Day 2019 – This year Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) started off “Anti-Racism Week” on the 18th March with a smaller focus group when we discussed various aspects of racism and racial discrimination. We continued with three workshops on 21st March when we talked about the way people can look different (hair colour, skin colour), reflect on how they see racism in their everyday life and talk about racial discrimination focused on the Roma population living in different European countries. All the workshops were held in the premises of the Youth Centre Brčko District. The activities were planned by our weltwarts’ volunteer Fabia, but executed by the hard work of our international and local volunteers.              Total participants: 20
• Spring festival 2019 – It’s been decided that Spring festival will take place on 12th April. Festival preparation started at the beginning of March.

EVS/ESC, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

• In March, Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) very much appreciated collaborating with 5 international volunteers: two ‘Weltwärts’ volunteers from Germany and three EVS/ESC volunteers from Turkey and Germany.
• Sending EVS/ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ – Three volunteers from Bosnia are doing their ‘Weltwärts’ and EVS/ESC service in Germany and Spain (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 March and discuss activities scheduled to take place in the Youth Centre.
• Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) staff attended the round table as part of a project entitled “What children know about homeland today?” which in its second cycle maintains recording a 6-episode series featuring 6 towns and promoting peace and reconciliation. The round table was organized by the Association of Magazine Kabare Sarajevo, and accordingly, Brcko was also visited by the sister organization from Gornji Vakuf / Uskoplje which led the main discussion. The topic of the round table was not directly determined, the conversation was focused on the post-war period and the situation in the Brčko District and the possible promotion of peace.
• Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) representatives attended a partner conference and training “Mentoring of our weltwärts volunteers and positioning in the weltwärts program” in Sarajevo, organized by Friedenskreis Halle Germany in cooperation with Eirene, Schüler Helfen Leben and Pax Christi, funded by weltwärts program. The main aim was to create a trustful, open and appreciating atmosphere, and initiate a critical dialogue about perspectives, needs and obstacles within the cooperation among the sending and hosting organizations. Specific goals of the conference included: reflection upon the pedagogical support of volunteers in general and specifically upon the support during conflicts and psycho-social crisis, strengthening of partnership by reflecting upon collaboration with focus on different positions as Sending and Hosting Organizations and space for exchange of pedagogical and organizational experiences. The program envisions opened slots foreseen for any potential matters that partners might find as important for their further cooperation.