Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) Project Report – March 2021

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midžić, Lejla Pešić

‘EVS/ESC’ volunteers: Angela Claire Stoddard, Malcolm Thomas Lowe, İlknur Şimşek, Fethiye Gülsüm Yorgancı                

 


 

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 15+
    • Music workshops – samba, guitar for children and young people

    HIGHLIGHTS ON MONTH’S ACTIVITIES

    • This month we were able to work quite normally, so a larger number of participants were able to attend the activities in the youth centre. Unfortunately, the number of infected increased dramatically at the end of the month, so some restrictive measures were reinstated, and the school spring break began a week earlier than planned. For the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we hosted an event with teenagers and young adults and encouraged them to share their views on two topics: local problems with racism and personal experiences of discrimination. 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 142 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) activities in March. 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 made colourful cards for mothers, paper ladybugs, safari animals from plasticine, and spring flowers using the fingerprinting method. The group watched video projections of stories and fairy tales, and cartoons with messages about friendship, empathy and love for family (Pixar and CGI animations). They finished with the Cyrillic alphabet, learned numbers from 1-10 (with the help of various, interesting worksheets) and new words in English, German and Turkey related to continents and emotions (angry, confused, happy, sad). In the Music Workshops, they learned the song “Fly, fly ladybug”. They rehearsed the text, melody, and rhythm, and prepared for video recording at the end of the month. Highlight with the younger group was learning about different continents and their cultures.
      • Older group –  They discussed the following topics: emotional stability (happiness and sadness, how to overcome sorrow or share the joy), the importance of reading and maintaining good habits, women as role models in our life and racism in BiH. 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 worked on grammar – adjectives and verbs to write a recipe for a favourite dish, describe family members, friends and their character traits. Besides, they practised daily communication and worked on projects and presentations for the school. The highlight with the older group was the storytelling workshop when they wrote and share with the group personal creative and interesting stories.

EVS/ESC, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

  • In March, Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) very much appreciated the collaboration with 4 EVS/ESC volunteers from UK and Turkey.
  • Sending EVS/ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ – Thirteen volunteers from Bosnia are doing their EVS/ESC service in Germany, Slovenia, Greece, 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 last meeting was to discuss conditions and schedules for the continuation of centre activities.
  • Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) representatives participated in the panel discussion ‘Transnational Flows and Global Hierarchies in Education’ organised by Omprakash, USA. The main aim was to discuss not only how global hierarchies play out in practice, but also how Omprakash’s partners have been pushing back against conventional expectations.
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Activities