Svitac (Firefly in Bosnia) Project Report – April 2024

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

Local volunteers: Eldar Bešić, Amina Omerović, Teodora Krsmanović

‘Weltwärts’ volunteers: Jonathan Ludwig, Simon Müller

‘ESC’ volunteers: –

Turing Scheme volunteers: Orla Rose Ryan
Love Volunteers’ volunteers: Andrew Michael Machado

      

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 THE MONTH’S ACTIVITIES

    • This month our participants spent their spring break with us and enjoyed various activities prepared by our volunteers. We talked about media with participants over the age of 16, emphasizing the need for media literacy in our daily lives! Our youngest participants let their creative juices flow in the bunny workshop, while we talked with the older ones at the English workshop about pop culture (books, music, and movies) and the importance of good presentation skills. The rest of the month was filled with music and time spent in informal learning with friends. 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 143 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly in Bosnia’s) activities in April. 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 talked about insects, reptiles, tulips, plants, bees, ladybugs, and learned adjectives for opposites (small-big, low-high, wide-narrow, long-short) and names of months and days of the week on B/H/S languages. The youngest participants enjoyed the creative part and modelling fun items (e.g. small rabbits made of hand prints and paper, tulips, ladybugs, bees, various figures and animals made of plasticine). The group continued with music workshops, practicing rhythms, rehearsing songs, and dance choreographies. The participants finished learning the Latin alphabet practising writing the letters Z and Ž and started learning the Cyrillic alphabet with letters A, Б, В, Г and Д (A, B, V, G, D). They did warm-up exercises and yoga for children, and every Thursday they danced, did sports and practiced reading and listening to stories (Thumbelina, The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Little Mermaid). In the English, German, and Turkish language workshops they learned words related to days of the week, months, numbers, health and adjectives. All workshops are implemented with an educational visual method with pictures and video; informal educational workshops aim to develop creativity, memory, motor skills, empathy, socialization, and tolerance for diversities. The highlight with the younger group was the workshop for Earth Day when they talked about different ways to protect nature.
      • Older group –  They discussed the following topics: tolerance, culture diversity, access to knowledge, media literacy and martial arts for young people. 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 practising everyday communication, reading and translating short texts, phrases, grammar, school homework, and interesting projects. The highlight with the older group was the workshop for World Book Day when they discussed books and the joy of reading, the importance of literacy, and linguistic diversity.

ESC, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

  • In April, Svitac (Firefly in Bosnia) very much appreciated the collaboration with 4 international volunteers from Germany, the UK and Belgium.
  • Visa process has been started for a volunteer from the UK.
  • Sending ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ – Three volunteers from Bosnia are doing their service in Germany and Romania (6-12 months).

MEETINGS and PRESENTATIONS

  • Svitac’s (Firefly in 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 in Bosnia’s) representatives attended the Training of trainers on experiential learning “To Train is To Transform the Future” in Milówka, Poland. The main goal of the project was to increase the quality of youth work by equipping youth workers (coordinators, facilitators, mentors, educators, teachers, etc.) with competencies in the experiential learning process. It aimed at building capacity among youth organizations to deliver quality educational programs in their communities and to increase the learning outcomes that young people are taking out from their activities. The training included sessions prepared and delivered by the participants, with coaching from the trainers’ team and with feedback sessions from the entire group. The participants were youth workers from Portugal, Greece, Spain, Armenia, Montenegro, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Romania, and Poland.
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