Svitac Project Report – July 2016

 

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

Local volunteers: Adin Midzic, Aida Zahirovic, Anela Kozarevic, Sladjana Basic, Katarina Mirkovic, Mocevic Ines, Nadia Selimi, Tamara Pekic, Azra Pezerovic, Maja Tomic

‘Weltwearts’ volunteer:  Jonas Kiesner

EVS volunteers:  Anne Bonitz, Monica Reeves, Vanessa Brumen, Christian Mennell, Eleonore Pearson, Trang Pham

Self-fundraising volunteers:  Marika Olsen

 

About 188 participants regularly attended Svitac’s activities in July, reconfirming their popularity in our small Brcko District community.

 

ON-GOING ACTIVITIES

  • 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, French, Italian
      • 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 French – conversational French workshops for teenagers and young people
      • Italian for Beginners – conversational Italian workshops for teenagers and young people
    • Art&Crafts workshops – Our younger artists used different materials to produce rainbows, dream catchers, different animals/insects on paper plates (bees, snails, butterflies, ladybirds), paper-roll butterflies, origami flowers. The younger group also learned to use plasticine and practised their skills by making different shapes. Among other activities the younger group learned and sang several songs: “Razbole se lisica” in local language, and “Numbers song”, and “ABC song” in English. The older group learned to perform the song “The Hall of the Mountain King” and kept practising “The Eye of the Tiger” with boom whackers.
    • Music workshops – samba, guitar, music workshops for children – Monica (international volunteer) continued to work on her intercultural music project. A regular and affectionate groups of participants has formed, with a few play instruments (two guitars, a piano and drums) to provide background music to those singing. The groups is practising a Scottish song, an American song and a south African song. Whilst continuing to work on a piece started last month, samba participants have started practising a new piece. For their own and others’ enjoyment, participants keep performing familiar compositions.
    • Drama Klub – A core group of 15 actors kept rehearsing single scenes, practising the text and working on details. The group has been working quite hard, performing several rehearsals per week to finish the play. The group aims at putting all scenes together into a single play, learn their respective texts, and fix costumes and stage decoration by the end of August.
    • Sports workshops – for teenagers and young people
    • Dance Workshops – Anne (international volunteer) prepared some new dances for our young dancers: Penguin dance, American country dance, Italian dance and revised old Greek traditional dances.
    • Fun Day – a day of fun activities organised for Svitac Children.
  • Local language lessons for international volunteers
  • School homework help
  • Filming and Testimonials –  international volunteers Monica Reeves and Anne Bonitz realised this project in collaboration with Svitac local volunteers

 

ANNUAL EVENTS

  • Summer Camps 2016 – Svitac will organise summer camps between the 22nd and the 26th of August, and a Children Day on the 27th of August. The summer camps will include Creative, Language and Music workshops. Workshops will be held everyday from Monday to Friday in the youth centre, each of which lasting 2 and half hours.
  • Future Shorts Film Festival – Future Shorts film start on the 26th of August 2016. Preparation for the festival started in July.

 

EVS, WELTWARTS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS’ PROGRAMMES

  • In June, Svitac very much appreciated collaborating with 8 international volunteers: one ‘weltwarts’ volunteer from Germany, six EVS volunteers from the UK, Austria and Germany, and one self-fundraising volunteers from the USA.
  • Eleonore Pearson, Christian Mennell and Trang Pham obtained their visa in July.
  • Gordana and Milos continued working on the EVS re-accreditation process throughout the month. A SALTO representative, Katarina Vuckovic, visited Svitac in July. Katarina advised Svitac representatives on how to improve the application to obtain the SALTO accreditation. The deadline for sending the amended application is the 4th.
  • Svitac sent two volunteers from the 22nd of July to the 21st of August to Don Bosco, in The Netherlands, to volunteer in the project ‘Celebrating 50 Years of Volunteering (Vakantiebos): Youth Crossing the Borders for social Change and Innovation (Group EVS 2016)’. A project approved by the Dutch NA. Sadmir Nakicevic and Nikolina Ceko were the two BiH volunteers whom Svitac initially recruited for this project. Very sadly, Nikolina Ceko fell ill at the beginning of July and had to stay in hospital for 20 days (she suffered from a harsh kidney infection). Given the particular situation, Svitac was forced to send another volunteer. Anela Kozarevic will replace Nikolina Ceko in this project.
  • In May, Gordana interviewed a number of EVS applicants form the UK via Skype. Five applicants have been selected and will start their volunteering experience in Svitac between June and September.
  • EVS project “Our Voice” Cyprus – This project will start on the 1st September (9 months position). Svitac local volunteer, Nikola Kerezovic, was accepted for this project after he successfully passed the selection interview.
  • EVS project “Second Wave” Lithuania – This project will start in the first week of September and will last for 12 months. The hosting organisation in Lithuania selected Husein Bajraktarević as volunteer for this project.

 

MEETINGS and PRESENTATIONS

  • Svitac representatives and the youth centre coordinator (Sejo Usanovic) continued to attend our regular monthly meetings with the other NGOs based in Brcko. 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.

 

Categories:

Activities