https://svitac.org

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midzic, Sladjana Basic, Katarina Mirkovic, Nadia Selimi, Matea Brkic, Ismar Mustafic, Zerina Kurtovic, Azra Pezerovic, Stefan Savcic, Ines Mocevic, Anela Kozarevic

‘Weltwearts’ volunteer:  Alexander Likic

EVS volunteers: Monica Reeves, Catherine Rolley, Eleonore Pearson, Benjamin Owens, Mahmut Taha Bicer, Yunus Seckin                                             

Self-fundraising volunteers:  Sanela Sinanovic

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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
    • 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
  • 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
• Local language lessons for international volunteers

HIGHLIGHTS ON MONTH’S ACTIVITIES

• This month was very busy with a number of special events such as 3 weeks long project called ‘Tolerance and cultural diversity through arts, music and sports 2016’ funded by Brcko district government with 3100€, Svitac annual New Year’s Party and an event ‘Get active and volunteer’ encouraging young people to become more active and invested in our local community (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waoJA0zEjIg ). International volunteers have been doing a lot of different daily activities and they focused on different things (fundraising, promotion of the organization through social media etc.).
• About 163 participants regularly attended Svitac’s activities in December, 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 different decorations for the party, posters for the tolerance project, drawings with the things they like and matched them together as puzzles, learned the word ‘snowman’ in English, made little snowmen out of paper and learned a new song called ‘Bah, Bah Black Sheep’. A highlight with the younger group was ‘Tolerance and cultural diversity through arts, music and sports 2016’ project through which they were encouraged to think about the topic but also to play together and respect each other. They were reminded how important is to share peace and love and respect people no matter who they are or where they come from.
  • Older group – They made snowflakes out of paper, paper chains, candy cane, robins which were used as New Year’s Party decorations. In the Language Workshops, the group listened a part of the song ‘Hot and cold’ by Katy Perry and had to recognize and write down the opposites as they listen to the song (hot-cold, yes-no, in-out, wrong-right). In the Music Workshops the group continued learning the song “Walking in the winter wonderland“ drew their favourite instruments and wrote the reason they like that particular instrument.
• Filming and Testimonials –  The international volunteer Monica Reeves kept working on this project in collaboration with other Svitac volunteers.

ANNUAL EVENTS

• The New Year’s Party – This was our big finale event and official closing of the ‘Tolerance and cultural diversity through music, arts and sports 2016’ project. The New Year’s Party was held at the Youth centre and organized with the support of international and local volunteers, alongside Svitac staff. The event started at 6pm with a program for guests, friends and parents and continued with competition games, face paintings and a craft activity called ‘tree of wishes’ organised by international volunteers from Great Britain, Turkey and Germany. There was an exhibition, in the main hall of the Youth centre, for the parents and friends. The last part of the event was a game of Bingo and refreshment for all participants and their friends. Total participants: 120

EVS, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

• In December, Svitac very much appreciated collaborating with 8 international volunteers: one ‘Weltwearts’ volunteer from Germany, six EVS volunteers from the UK and Turkey and one self-funded volunteer from USA.
• Sending EVS – Two volunteers from Bosnia doing their EVS service in Cyprus (9 months) and Lithuania (12 months).
• Visa process has been finished for 1 international volunteer and started for two EVS volunteers from Turkey (arrived in December).

MEETINGS and PRESENTATIONS

• Svitac representatives continued to attend regular monthly meetings with the youth center coordinator and the other NGOs based in Brcko. The purpose of the last meeting was to share information about activities and plans for December and discuss activities scheduled to take place in the youth center.