https://svitac.org

Staff:   Gordana Varcakovic, Dina Vosanovic, Milos Popic, Sanjin Vosanovic

Local volunteers: Adin Midzic, Aldina Pezerovic, Nadia Selimi, Aleksa Gavric, Katarina Popovic, Merima Hidanovic, Ivana Knezic, Boris Kikic, Semir Hodzic

‘Weltwearts’ volunteers:  Manja Momirovic, Kim Hartmann

Erasmus+ volunteers: Tuba Çoban, Vedat Yalçın                  

Self-fundraising volunteers:  Jessica Perkes, Kirby Richman

Interns:  Camila Catalan-Munoz, Hanna Lonergan

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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 was hectic and busy filled with lots of interviews, researching and antiracism week. 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 128 participants regularly attended Svitac’s (Firefly’s) activities in March, reconfirming their popularity in our small Brcko 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 penguins, personal flowers, crayon box, paper birds and puppets. They started learning Cyrillic alphabet and learned to write and pronounce letter A in local language, and new words in English and German related to animals and nature. They learned “Kiša pada trava raste” in local language and made the video for this song. Highlight with the younger group was workshop with paper puppets.
  • Older group – They made hand bands of friendship and a universal person collage. In the Language Workshops, the group learned new words related to weather forecast, underwater creatures and family tree in English, German and Turkish. In the Music Workshops the group played some music using boom whackers and learning how to improvise. The highlight with the older group were workshops about anti-racism.

ANNUAL EVENTS

• Anti-racism Day 2018 – This year anti-racism week was celebrated around the world from March 19-23, with the Anti-Racism Day being on March 21st. Here at Svitac (Firefly), we celebrated with a full week of activities in the mornings and afternoons with our participants. While exploring the important topic of racism, we also delved into topics such as bullying, prejudice, stereotyping and much more. The activities were planned by our two interns, but executed by the hard work of our international and local volunteers. Total participants: 70
• Spring festival 2018 – It’s been decided that Spring festival will take place on 20th April. Festival preparation started at the end of March.

ERASMUS+, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

• In March, Svitac (Firefly) very much appreciated collaborating with 8 international volunteers and interns: two ‘Weltwearts’ volunteers from Germany, two E+ volunteers from Turkey, two self-funded volunteers from USA and two interns from Canada.
• Visa process has been finished for two E+ volunteers from Turkey.
• Sending E+ and ‘Weltwearts’ – Two volunteers from Bosnia are doing their ‘weltwearts’ and E+ service in Germany and Italy (6 and 12 months).

MEETINGS and PRESENTATIONS

• Svitac (Firefly) representatives continued to attend regular monthly meetings with the youth centre coordinator and the other NGOs based in Brcko. The purpose of the last meeting was to share information about activities and plans for March and discuss activities scheduled to take place in the Youth Centre.
• Svitac (Firefly) staff attended a panel discussion organized by the Association of High Schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina (ASuBiH), within the project “Friends without Boundaries”, whose theme was the phenomenon of “Two Schools Under One Roof”, in the Central Bosnia and Herzegovina Canton where pupils of two ethnic groups are separated with physical barriers.
• Svitac (Firefly) representatives attended the presentation of the Action Plan for Social Cohesion for the representatives of Banja Luka, Tuzla and Brcko District of BiH, which was organized by the OSCE on March 23rd, in cooperation with the Government of the Brcko District.