https://svitac.org

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midžić, Nadja Selimi, Merima Hidanović, Mehmed Hidanović, Almedina Musić, Ema Zenunović, Ines Močević, Jovana Lukić, Boris Kikić, Aldina Pezerović, Aleksa Gavrić

‘Weltwearts’ volunteers:  Manja Momirovic, Kim Hartmann

‘Erasmus+’ volunteers: Tuba Çoban, Vedat Yalçın                  

‘Omprakash’ volunteers:  Trevor Waters

‘Love Volunteers’ volunteers:  Umair Khan

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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 was variable but the participants were cheerful and eager to learn new things. The best part of working with children and young people is always the unity and teamwork. Svitac staff were busy with promoting Svitac’s (Firefly’s) peace-building work in Nuernberg, Germany, coordinating local and international volunteers and preparing, planning and gathering the team for the Summer Camps activities. 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 152 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly’s) activities in July, 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 aquarium with sea animals, newspapers’ pads, bookmarks and friendship’s hearts. They learned to write and pronounce letters NJ, LJ and J in local languages, and new words in English and German related to geometric shapes, occupations and emotions. They learned a new song in local language ‘Od kuće do Svitca’ (“From home to Firefly”). Highlight with the younger group was International Day of Friendship workshop when participants created origami hearts for their friends.
  • Older group – They made mosaic from old CDs, aquarium, friendship bracelets, greetings cards and coloured with spray cans different images. In the Language Workshops, the group learned new words related to theatre, workshops’ rules and board games in English, German and Turkish. In the Music Workshops the group was crafting guitars from cardboard and had an air guitar battle. They played music with a piece of hardware called musical touchpad and with boom whackers. The participants played a lot of volleyball, baseball and team spirit games. The highlight with the older group were workshops when they created Svitac’s (Firefly’s) magical garden which included drawing and writing about Svitac and what it means to them.

ERASMUS+, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

• In July, Svitac (Firefly) very much appreciated collaborating with 6 international volunteers: two ‘Weltwearts’ volunteers from Germany, two E+ volunteers from Turkey, one ‘Love Volunteers’ volunteer from UK, 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).
• Students’ exchange for the German participants will take place from 14th to 21st August. The main topic will be “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 will be 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 July and discuss activities scheduled to take place in the Youth Centre.
• Svitac (Firefly) attended an Annual meeting of Erasmus+ volunteering organizations from 5th to 8th July in Sarajevo, BiH. The main aim of the meeting was to support quality implementation of Erasmus+ volunteering and to exchange experience, knowledge and challenges among accredited organisations and with SALTO SEE and the two Contact points for E+: YIA in Montenegro and Proni in BIH.
• Svitac (Firefly) attended presentation of European Union programs: The Creative Europe, Europe for Citizens and Horizon 2020 organised by EU Info Centre in Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with the EU Info Office network in Mostar, Banja Luka and Brčko. The Creative Europe Program is intended to strengthen and develop the cultural, creative and audio-visual sector, and it consists of two sub-programs – MEDIA and CULTURE. Europe for Citizens is an EU program aimed at promoting the concept of “active European citizenship” and providing support for involving citizens in European integration processes, while Horizon 2020 is the largest EU research and innovation program with a budget of almost 80 billion euros for the period 2014- 2020.
• Svitac (Firefly) representatives attended training for NGOs on “Advocacy and Impact on Educational Policies” organised by the Youth centre Vermont within the project “Bright4All – Primary Education Right for All Children in Bosnia and Herzegovina”. The aim of the training was to encourage local NGOs to recognize their role in addressing the problem of abandoning schooling and to be more actively involved in preventing early abandonment of education.