https://svitac.org

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

Local volunteers: Maja Tomić, Eldar Bešić, Jelena Tošić

‘Weltwärts’ volunteers: Charlotte Stella Kramer, Lenja Helen Schulze Wessel

‘ESC’ volunteers: Maika Luise Dils, Marlen Eckert 

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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 (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 was festive and educational at the same time. The rainy cold weather could not stop us from being creative and the beginning of the school holidays brought new energy to our activities. We talked about volunteering and ways to help the family and the community and made holiday decorations. We ended the month with a New Year’s party when our participants showed their friends and family the skills they learned in the previous period. Happy New Year to everyone, we hope it will be better than the previous one and bring everyone much happiness and health. 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 145 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly in Bosnia’s) activities in December. 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 winter holidays, the Solar System and the planets, about the human body and how it works, with an age-appropriate method and a cartoon feature film on this interesting topic. In the creative part, they made winter decorations, Snowmen, and dinosaurs. The group continued to learn and write numbers 7-14. In the English, German and Turkish language workshops they learned words related to countries and their capitals, animals and auxiliary verbs. They started practicing a new dance choreography and continued mini-drama workshops with the story “Rainbow fish”, which tells us about tolerance, respect, and friendship. The participants did yoga and group games inside the youth centre. All workshops are implemented with an educational visual method with pictures and video; the goal of informal educational workshops is to develop creativity, memory, motor skills, empathy, socialization and tolerance for diversities. Highlight with the younger group was the workshop about friendship when they talked about why it is important, and what it means to be a friend, and made a “friendship flower”.
    • Older group –  They discussed the following topics: human rights, volunteering, New Year’s celebrations in various countries, and animals in the zoo. 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 repeated verbs in the present tense, learned nouns for winter clothing and the form of interrogative sentences, wrote dictations, read and translated short texts, worked on practicing everyday communication and grammar, and got help with homework and school projects. The highlight with the older group was the workshop for Human Rights Day when they discussed basic human rights, and similarities and differences between Bosnia and Herzegovina and other European countries.

ANNUAL EVENTS

• New Year Party 2022 – This event was held on 14th December at the Youth centre and organized with the support of international and local volunteers, alongside Svitac’s (Firefly in Bosnia’s) staff. The participants had an opportunity to participate in the program, various games, and fun activities and enjoy the snacks and refreshments. The New Year Party was attended by 120 participants.

ESC, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

• In December, Svitac (Firefly in Bosnia) very much appreciated the collaboration with 4 Weltwärts and ESC volunteers from Germany.
• Sending ESC and ‘Weltwärts’ – Five volunteers from Bosnia are doing their service in Germany, Spain and Turkey (2-12 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.
• The study visit in collaboration with partner organization Bezirksjugendwerk der AWO Hessen-Süd e.V. (Brcko District, 5th to 9th of December) – The project aimed to provide volunteers from Germany, particularly those with less access to international voluntary work, an experience of discovering Bosnia-Herzegovina through Svitac’s (Firefly in Bosnia’s) supportive atmosphere. Working alongside young volunteers from the local community, the 12 participants from Germany learned about, and take an active part in, the unique peacebuilding work in Brcko District. The project offered them the opportunity to discover Bosnia and Herzegovina’s special culture and natural beauty while gaining an understanding of Brcko’s role in post-conflict reconciliation as a self-governing zone between the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. Alongside their educational and cultural experiences in Brčko, the participants were also introduced to the nature that surrounds the town through a tour of the town and adventure activities. The project allowed the volunteers, who were born after the end of the war in Bosnia, to discover the necessity of reconciling the tensions that still exist and why they remain so prominent in Brcko, and across the country. Through their discussions with local youth, the volunteers gained an insight into the challenges facing young people in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the reasons behind so many moving to countries such as Germany.