Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) Project Report – September 2021

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midžić, Mira Božić, Majida Hasković, Amna Fazlović

‘Weltwearts’ volunteers: Nikolai Karl Pfeiffer, Rike Lea Stollenwerk

‘EVS/ESC’ volunteers: Malcolm Thomas Lowe, Muhammed Fırat Dağ                 

 


 

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 brought many changes: students returned to school, old volunteers finished the service and new ones began to arrive slowly. The epidemiological situation was worse than the previous month, the number of infected increased during the month but new measures were not introduced. Activities in the youth centre continued normally with a large number of participants in the morning and afternoon activities. It is a very good feeling to get positive feedback and confirmation from parents, participants and colleagues that Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) is providing continuously activities in the local community improving its peacebuilding work and gathering young people from different ethnic backgrounds to develop their awareness of peace 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 140 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) activities in September. 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 hedgehogs with dry leaves, paper fish with fishing rods and magnets, paper aeroplanes, dry leaf collage, carnival masks, seasons, step-by-step drawing and the basics of using rulers and compasses. They learned about rivers in BiH and watched various presentations about places to live, domestic animals, and team sports. In the English, German and Turkish language workshops they learned words related to school supplies, classroom and animals. In the Music Workshops, they listened to songs appropriate to their age and started to learn the new song ”When Ana’s feet tread”. Highlight with the younger group was the creative and educational workshop for International Peace Day when they talked about this very important topic, made paper hearts, wrote messages of peace and coloured the peace dove with fingerprints.
      • Older group –  They discussed the following topics: democracy and democratic societies, what peace and tolerance mean to them and human rights. 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 writing emails formally and informally, and which phrases we most often use for short phone calls. The highlight with the older group was the workshop for European Day of Languages when they talked about various languages spoken in Europe and their characteristics.

EVS/ESC, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

  • In September, Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) very much appreciated the collaboration with 4 Weltwärts and EVS/ESC volunteers from UK, Germany and Turkey.
  • Visa process has been started for two weltwärts volunteers from Germany.
  • Sending EVS/ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ – Nine 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.
  • Svitac’s (Firefly Bosnia’s) representatives attended the network “Promote Positive” meeting when they discussed the plan to organize a round table with Brčko district students to talk about cultural diversities as well as the network’s activities till the end of the year.
Categories:

Activities