Youth Community Development Supporter

The program

With a goal of breaking down the still prevalent racial prejudices left in the wake of the Bosnian War of 1992-95, this wonderfully unique social development project was established with the sole purpose of creating and improving relationships between the young people of historically conflicting ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through a combination of youth-focused education and arts projects based in Brcko in Bosnia’s North West, a region where unemployment figures are as high as 40%, this multi-ethnic ‘anti-segregation’ project aims to create and foster connections between young people from the area as well as increase their self-confidence to create opportunities for them to work toward a united and stable nation. Dissolving generations of inherited, deep-seated racial prejudices can be a long and arduous task, and international volunteers, themselves from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds, demonstrating compassion and indiscriminate empathy to the children, play an important role in achieving the desired outcomes of this ambitious project.

Goals of this Project:

• Provide support for at-risk children in Bosnian and Herzegovina
• Foster positive relationships and understanding between peoples
• Promote anti-segregation and build at risk youth’s confidence and self-worth
• Provide an opportunity for cross cultural exchange between volunteers and locals

How you can help

This volunteer program provides essential support to ensure this program can fulfil its aim for an inclusive society.  Volunteers play a crucial role in enabling youth to attend and participate in a program that will open their eyes and promote healing and understanding. Through an ongoing series of fun and social workshops, held every Monday to Friday in a local youth center, the project caters to approximately 30 local children and youth aged from 4 to 14, who together share in creative, team-building games and activities with the aim of uniting them by learning about one another. For international volunteers this is a highly varied program, which can be tailored to suit the skills and interests of each participant. There are several areas of focus and volunteers generally assist where the need is greatest, or where their skills are best suited, but usually include sharing knowledge or presenting classes/activities across the arts, music, drama, sports, geography and languages. Whilst the workshops are designed to be fun and educational, the participants learn not only to socialize with each other, but learn about different cultures, to become team players and to follow different rules.

To achieve the ambitious and courageous goals of this program, the program works on several areas of focus which volunteers will assist with:

• Deliver team building activities and work on projects with youth
• Support and encourage youth through various discussions and activities
• Organize other activities, games and mentoring as required
• Assist program staff with organization and other task as required

Please note

As volunteers on this program will be working with young people of mixed language ability, with only some of whom speaking English (or German), each volunteer is expected to study the local language/s (Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian) during their time in Brcko and to this end they will each be provided with a short language course as part of the program.

A volunteer’s work day on this project will generally last between 4 and 6 hours and while we ask all volunteers to be flexible in this regard, a typical daily schedule is likely to go something like this:

8:00am Breakfast at the Volunteer Apartment or nearby cafe

9:45am Walk or bus to the project site

10:30am Pre-start meeting with the program supervisor

11:00am VOLUNTEERING DUTIES START

Lunch is taken at midday at an eatery near to the project site

3:30pm VOLUNTEERING DUTIES END

3:45pm Debrief with the project supervisor

4:00pm Walk or bus to the Volunteer Apartment or run errands in town

Evenings Free time or optional volunteering duties.

Evenings are free to relax and explore the local area or volunteers may like to be involved in assisting with evening language workshops for young people and adults. Volunteers are also welcome to help with the coordination of any annual events that may be taking place.