https://svitac.org

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midžić, Nadja Selimi, Merima Hidanović, Mehmed Hidanović, Almedina Musić, Ines Močević, Jovana Lukić, Boris Kikić, Aldina Pezerović, Ivana Knežić

‘Weltwearts’ volunteers:  Manja Momirovic, Kim Hartmann

‘Erasmus+’ volunteers:              –                  

‘Omprakash’ volunteers:  Trevor Waters

‘Love Volunteers’ volunteers:     –

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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!/Pricajmo njemacki!“ (“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 the weather continued to be changeable but the participants continued to come in a large number, always playful and eager to learn new things. They were most fond of participating in Summer Camps and Children’s Day. 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 155 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly’s) activities in August, reconfirming their popularity in our small Brčko District community. 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 fans, origami glasses and birds. They learned to write and pronounce letters P, R and S in local languages, and new words in English and German related to transportation means, mushrooms and summer. They learned a new song ‘Gym‘ in local language. Highlight with the younger group were preparations for the summer camps.
  • Older group – They made made origami glasses, 3D faces, phone cases, Svitac (Firefly) magical garden and decorations for Children’s Day. In the Language Workshops, the group learned new words related to public services, emotions, space and ecology in English, German and Turkish. In the Music Workshops the group was practising songs for performance during Children’s Day and learned new dance moves called “Monkey dance”. The participants played a lot of volleyball, baseball and team spirit games. The group also played water games because of the intense heat. The highlight with the older group were workshops on the occasion of the International Youth Day implemented in cooperation with “Lokalni tim ASuBiH Brčko”.

ANNUAL EVENTS

• FutureShort festival – The 16th film festival was organised on 31st August. Over years, small, but dedicated fan-base has been developed although there are always new and young people attending the screenings. Apart from using sound system in the youth centre, active speaker box was used outdoors, in front of the Youth Centre, prior to the event to attract and entertain audience waiting for the screening. The event in Brčko was a part of global FutureShorts film festival season. Short films that were screened in the Youth Centre were also screened in 100 cities and 40 countries all over the world. Local volunteers helped in advertising the event trough distributing posters and flyers. The short film night provided a unique opportunity for a diverse range of people in the community to come together and watch thought provoking global films which inspire and entertain. The event raised awareness and encouraged discussion about global issues, stimulating fresh ideas and creativity in a town where cultural activity is limited. Summer season program included 6 short films. The audience in Brčko chose UK film ‘Flight’ (director: Laura Wahda Documentary) as their favourite film.    Total participants: 58
• Summer camps 2018 – Three camps took place from 27th to 31st August and Children’s Day on 1st September in the Youth Centre. Summer camps included Creative, Language and Music camps. Workshops were held every day from Monday to Friday and each workshop lasted 2 and half hours.
  • Creative camp – The theme of the creative camp was “ECOLOGY ART”. Every day started with short introduction about daily tasks and participants were asked different questions about ecology and environment awareness and fun facts in general. The participants of different ethnicities had a chance to learn and work in a neutral place and make different interesting art items from recycling materials, but also to learn more about ecology and environment awareness. The final results of the Creative camp’s activities were the exhibition and the quiz about ecology. In order to create a mosaic Julie Norburn, from UK organization Art 4Space, worked closely with Ivana Knežić, a local Svitac (Firefly) volunteer. Ivana processed rigorous training from initial design, how to cut and place the files, grouting and completion. She will now use this skills to inspire further projects for the Brčko community. The coordinator of the creative camp was Edina Vošanović and assistants were local volunteers Almedina Pezerović and Ivana Knežić.
  • Language camp – Participants of the language camp had opportunity to attend workshops in English and Spanish. It was a nice change from everyday routine for everyone and it was very dynamic and motivating for participants. During the workshops they learned and improved their vocabulary related to free time activities and personal information, food world, entertainment can start (music, film) and project day: cultural diversity (in BiH). They also learned the basics of the Spanish language and the main sights and features of the countries where English is used as first language. The coordinators of the language camp were Merima Hajdarević and Kristina Varcaković while assistants were local volunteers (Jovana Lukić, Nadia Selimi and Ines Močević).
  • Music camp – The camp coordinator was Sanjin Vošanović and three international and local volunteers (Adin Midžić, Mehmed Hidanović and Florian Pauleck) participated in preparing and leading parts of everyday workshops. Every workshops started with warm up, slowly crossing to carefully chosen games of rhythm, measure, dynamics and team work (different each day). All of the games increased in difficulty and variety with enough space and time left for volunteers to introduce game of their choice. While learning how to play different rhythms on various surfaces, participants were engaged in exploring a palette of sound colours (timbre) they are exposed to in everyday life but are not necessarily considered “musical”. Plastic and metal bins, construction tools, samba instruments, a lot of drum sticks and boomwhackers, were used as instruments and rhythmical introduction to group activities, cooperation and team work. Mixer, microphone, active sound box, cables, sound card and laptop were used for creative and recording activities. Participants were able to individually create musical ideas, listen to those ideas in a group and then exchange and rearrange them.
  • Children’s Day – Children’s Day was held on 1st September in the Youth centre. The program started at 12:00 and parents and friends of the camps’ participants were able to see what they learned in previous 5 days of the camps. Svitac music camp recorded the song that was played as a background music of the “ecological cat – walk” prepared by Creative camp. The Creative camp’s participants have presented the project “Ecology art and mosaic” and had an exhibition of art items in the hall of the Youth center for the parents and friends with beautiful decoration of drawings. There was also a quiz about the ecology and recycling. The Language camp performed three songs in English and did posters to present their week. All visitors were able to play various competitive games, to experience face painting and got nice and useful presents for school during Bingo (bingo).

                   Total participants summer camps: 80       

                   Total participants Children’s Day: 150

ERASMUS+, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

• In August, Svitac (Firefly) very much appreciated collaborating with 3 international volunteers: two ‘Weltwearts’ volunteers from Germany and one ‘Omprakash’ volunteer from USA.
• Sending E+ and ‘Weltwearts’ – Four volunteers from Bosnia are doing their ‘weltwearts’ and E+ service in Germany, Spain and Italy (6, 10 and 12 months).
• Exchange for the German participants took place from 14th to 21st August. The main topic was “intercultural youth work” – why work of Omladinska organizacija Svitac (Firefly) and other NGOs is important in Brcko District and how much life in Brčko is different now than before. The project was implemented in cooperation with German partner ‘Bezirksjugendwerk der AWO Hessen-Süd e.V‘.

MEETINGS and PRESENTATIONS

• Svitac (Firefly) 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 August and discuss activities scheduled to take place in the Youth Centre.
• Svitac (Firefly) staff participated in the workshop organised by Tamara Cvetković as the follow up of “Transforming Narratives” activity and was supported by UNOY “United nation of young peacebuilders”. 23 participants attended this activity focusing on the “Peacebuilding Process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This project is support by European Youth Foundation and Council of Europe.