البوسنة والهرسك

Teaching about foreign languages and culture of minority groups.

During our previous activities UDIK organized activities regarding transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a focus to all the victims and to the construction of peace activism.  UDIK is a reform inside of the civil society in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a recognizable brand of acting on the streets of Sarajevo and other cities. Except the office in Sarajevo, UDIK also has office in Brcko, which organizes activities on the streets of this city. UDIK's strength is reflected in the strong connection to activism and the construction of equitable peace and different and better Balkan. Our peacekeeping actions we marked with blackness and silence paying tribute to murdered victims in the war in the former Yugoslavia. These activities of UDIK were very well monitored, brended and recognizable in Bosnia and Herzegovina's society, but also in the Balkan. These activities UDIK was presenting in the public like „The Living Monument“ to all victims of war, with the concept of reconciliation through responsibility. In addition, the activists of UDIK are aware that Bosnia and Herzegovina will never build a unique monument for the civilian victims of war and that is why „The Living Monument“ is the only chance of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to build it on this way. With „The Living Monument“ UDIK for the first time as civil society organization marked many crimes of which citizens and civil society for many years kept silent. We did crimes and violence visible in the community. And with this way we discovered a new way of organizing. Our reform we carried out on the streets of cities across the region (ex-Yugoslavia), through the policy of providing every citizen to join in the activities of „The Living Monument“, watching him through the most emotional aspect of every human being, at the same time warning that the crime was something that should not be forgotten, but nor deny. On this way, UDIK set the level of civil society, which extends through the idea of meeting people with the same objective in order to build a peace. To his activities of „The Living Monument“ UDIK wants to give the opportunity for participation of each of the actual individuals in the construction of peace and distancing from the committed crimes. This is our contribution to a memorialisation and to empathy building for that which everybody in the community are ignored, and that is poverty and the tacit approval of violence and even the denial of crimes.    

Association is an idea under which name the following activities operate: RadiYo Active Zenica, Children's Parliament, Production studiYo, Agora City Debate Club and Budi muško klub/Young man Initiative. On the international scale we implemented “Youth for Free Media” EU-funded project in 2017. together with partners from Cyprus, Bulgaria, Serbia and Poland. Our RadiYo is also a member of CMFE – Community Media Forum Europe, network of community media for organizations from Council of Europe member states. Besides that, Children's Parliament meets every week in our premises to learn about child rights. Also, we celebrate Children's Day and Children’s Week every year and try to remind our city and state that they are obliged to take care of the children. Our Children is a member of Network of NGOs for children in Bosnia and Herzegovina Stronger Voice for Children. It is a nation-wide network of almost two dozen non-governmental organizations brought together in 2009 by the need to have a systematic, effective, evidence-based impact on the processes affecting children rights in Bosnia. Besides that, we are exclusive partner from Bosnia and Herzegovina for Pestalozzi Foundation. We organize an intercultural exchange with Pestalozzi Children's Village in Switzerland where we take 40 children from Zenica twice a year for the last 3 years. Throughout this, 20-day long exchange, children get totally different perspective about learning and they get to meet 40 kids from other country, since every exchange includes at least two countries. With this, we give them a chance to travel, learn and experience and learn about discrimination, their rights and identity.

1. Maximize coverage of effective HIV prevention and care among most at risk populations – Global Found
2. The culture of living – financed by the CHF.
3. Dialogues II – in the partnership with the organization the Bureau for the Human Rights Tuzla – financed by the European – promotion of the work of the selected representatives of the national minorities and advocating activity on the amendment of the law that regulate this area.
4. MAIM Alternative measures to the institutionalization of the minors without a parental taking care and support and support to the young in the special state of the poverty and neglect – financed by the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the Republic Italy (the project in three phases: campaign and advocating the provider families and monitoring).
5. Initiative for the protection of the waters in the basin of the river Spreča – CLEAR MIND FOR CLEAR WATER – financed by the Europe Union and in the partnership with the Centre for Development and Support from Tuzla - advocating for making a Regulation Plan for arranging the bed of the drainage basin of the river Spreča.
6. Advocating for making the Law on Social Protection.
7. Anti-Corruption Program for Youth "Jolly Ambassadors

Problems that families with children/persons with disabilities deal with on a daily basis led us to start with concrete support, by the project – Service center “Give Us a Chance”. Services that our professional staff and volunteers provide at Association Service center “Give Us a Chance” are available to all families residing in Sarajevo Canton that have a family member with disabilities – regardless of medical diagnosis, age, and level of disability. Services are free of charge.
The first service center was opened on May 28, 2014, with support of USAID and Novi Grad Municipality. The center officially started working on June 2 of the same year in Alipašino polje, Novi Grad Municipality. In December of 2017, the Service center “Give Us a Chance 2” was opened in Stari Grad Municipality, Sarajevo, at “Obala Kulina Bana 28”.
What makes us different from other NGOs are:
- free service for all users
- we do not discriminate on age, type, and degree of difficulty
- our existence is long-term - we are not a one-off project, we are here to stay
- we are not only focused on children/persons with disabilities - we support the entire family, which is the only way to give the right support effect. Only a strong parent, a strong family as a unit, mentally and physically, can be able to provide his or her child with the disadvantages of whatever is necessary for a long time. 
- at the Sarajevo Canton level, we are the only organization that provides a full set of these specific types of services
The Service Center hires relevant experts such as OT therapists, psychologists, lawyer, nurses. We also educate volunteers of related professions and auxiliary staff.
Main services
• Psychological support
• Short break service
• All-day-stay service
• Developmental assessment of children in case of possible disability
• Mobile team – support at family’s home address 
• Mobile team – transport service by specially adapted van
• Information and legal support
• Crisis situation support
• Workshops for typical siblings
• Work Saturday (once a month)
• Help with finding teaching assistant
• Education (schools, technical staff)
• Inclusive activities
• Little volunteers
Service centers “Give Us a Chance 1 and 2”, located in Sarajevo, have provided 40000 services, free of charge, to 600 families that have been registered so far (2014 – 2019).

Main projects:
Project funded by Council of Ministries B&H in amount of 59,000.00 KM – “Treatments for education and rehabilitation for disabled children and youth”.
Through implementation of above mentioned project, we wanted to provide rehabilitation and education for socialization to children and youth with special needs. Therefore, we organized treatments for education and rehabilitation for disabled children and youth.
During the project we organized education for parents of the mentioned children, so they could help them better in rehabilitation and socialization in a community.
Aiming at improving health condition and problems our beneficiaries and their families meet, we organized speech and defectological therapies, psychiatrist treatments, ART therapies, educative workshops for children and youth with special needs, their parents and teachers. Subjects were related to raising and education of children with special needs; on workshops they learned Gesture language, needed for children with hearing impairment and mental disbursement.
* CNF – CEE “Treatments for rehabilitation and education for disabled children and youth”
Project extension was in 2009, with budget of 26,000.00 Euros.
This project comprised 62 children and youth, disturbed in development and with all kinds and levels of handicap: light, medium and hard mental retardation, with hearing, sight and speech impairments, motor control and with combined disturbances (different syndromes: SY West, SY Down, SY); and which live in Srebrenica, Bratunac and Milići municipalities. We provided treatments for education and rehabilitation (which our institution are not able to provide) for these beneficiaries.
This project in total comprised 186 members, which are their parents, brothers, sisters, school friends, teachers and medicine workers.
Association “Leptir” is the only one dealing with problems of this target group. And the target group is children and youth with psycho and physical disturbances, their parents, teachers, school friends, social and medicine workers.
Main activities were:
• Treatments for rehabilitation for 75 beneficiaries
• Physical therapies for 43 beneficiaries
• Creative workshops – ART therapies for 20 beneficiaries
• Education of parents
We have planned to implement all above mentioned activities equally in Srebrenica (for children from Srebrenica and Bratunac) and Milići (for children from Milići).
*CPCD – Improvement of living conditions for children and youth with disabilities – 5,000.00 KM
* “Improvement of living conditions for children and youth with disabilities” – Center for Promotion of civil society.
The project has been implemented in municipalities of Srebrenica, Bratunac and Milići. Within this project implementation out of received funds, we purchased food, vitamins and clothes for our 45 most vulnerable beneficiaries. There were 21 volunteers hired from three municipalities, Srebrenica, Bratunac and Milići.
We hired 15 volunteers for collection of hygienic items in front of the bigger stores, and 6 volunteers for cleaning of houses and preparing wood for heating.
Implementing this project, we wanted to present to the municipal authorities from Srebrenica, Bratunac and Milići, and national authorities, in which socio-economic conditions of living children with special needs live.

In order to reach mentioned goals and objectives, the Association of EKO-PRO implements activities through a number of areas of activity. There are few of them in environmental sector:
SUSTAINABLE AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
- Support to municipalities and local communities, representing them the European standards for urban and sustainable development
- Participation in planning and defining the principles of sustainable urban development and application of the same
- Active participation in the preparation, implementation and evaluation of certain strategic or development documents, lows etc (on different levels)
- Planning, implementation, analysis and publication of certain research and results related to sustainable urban development, etc.
EVNIRONMENT PROTECTION AND WASTE
- Participation in the implementation of activities related to the reduction of waste
- Participation in educational seminars related to waste and adverse impacts of waste
- Enhancing/raising public awareness about taking responsibility and caring for the environment through proper waste disposal and recycling, etc.
WATER MANAGEMENT
- Participation in the implementation of activities related to water protection and water resources
- Participation in educational seminars related to water protection
- Organization of public campaigns on the need to protect water
EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES
- Organization of public events, meetings, seminars and other forms of educational events (independently or in partnership with other NGOs)
- Creation, publication and distribution of materials and manuals
- Enhancing public awareness on environment protection
DEVELOPMENT OF COOPERATION
- The initiation and implementation of activities related to cross-border cooperation
- Cooperation with local, cantonal, federal and state governments, other organizations and stakeholders in planning and implementing various environmental programs, etc,
- Cooperation with local authorities in creating the development of strategic documents

Project activities develop in respect to following aspects:
- cultural aspect that includes the production of cultural content for youth component in the local media, that would include promotion of new ideas, tolerance and diversity, in support of youth democracy
- political aspect that includes lobbying with the municipal authorities and communication with general public that can put pressure on authorities in order to achieve better and more responsible treatment of youth issues.
- legal aspect that includes advocacy of compliance with state and local regulations and documents that regulate youth issues, of which the most important are the Law on Youth Organizing and Youth Policy document.

- decentralized cooperation in different sectors:
- local democracy, environment, local economic
development, social welfare, social, educational,cultural activities, with special focus on women, youth and the protection of human rights;
- organization of twinning between local authorities in Italy and Bosnia-Herzegovina;
- organization of sports exchange between Italy and Bosnia and Herzegovina;
- youth exchanges, animations of children in rural areas of Zavidovici;
- support and assistance to local initiatives for the fight against domestic violence;
- awareness-raising activities in local communities on the issue of human rights, civil participation and promotion of European integration;
- coordination and hosting of volunteers within the European Voluntary Service - EVS;
- mediation activities and encouraging the construction of civil society at the local level;
- activities of research, analysis and publication of documents on the state of society and social needs.

Since the Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina was founded, there have been several projects which of regional cultural co-operation. One of the biggest projects was "The PAX Project", which was implemented in partnership with CARE International. It was set up as a key component of CARE's civil society programme in July 1997, and has continued until March 2000 as a peace-building and social reconstruction project focussing upon young people out of school and children in schools with their teachers.
There have been two principal strands to the PAX Project's work:
1. promotion of multi-ethnic peace-building work with youth theatre groups;
2. development of a participatory learning approach for classroom peace-building work.
The PAX Project’s goal has been "to foster a sustainable local environment of peace and multi-ethnic tolerance across all three main communities that comprise Bosnia and Herzegovina".
This work has been conducted on a national basis. In addition, the Project has been continually linking work done within Bosnia and Herzegovina with inter-Regional work (especially with Serbia and Croatia) with the same focus on peace building and reconstruction. The pre-war network of theatre artists of former Yugoslavia has been to a small, but significant degree, maintained and reconstructed on the axis Zagreb-Mostar-Belgrade. There is now a firmly established tri-partite co-operation between CDOBiH and its two sister organisations in Croatia, HCDO (Croatian Centre for Drama Education) and in Serbia, CEDEUM.
The "productive distraction" of the work has aided the quality and pace of peace-building in all its different aspects: trauma healing, breaking down barriers between those previously on opposed sides, conflict resolution, the development of mutual respect and understanding, reconciliation and social reconstruction.
In the last 10 years, the Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in co-operation with the Mostar Youth Theatre and the Network of Independent Theatres, has been organising and leading various numbers of workshops in all Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in the region of South-East Europe. Attendance at the national and international workshops and conferences has been sought, almost invariably successfully, from all the 'groups' or 'communities' of B&H. This was achieved by setting up local "separate" workshops in the first place, then by inviting participants to the next national workshop. On other occasions the fact of a workshop, conference, or festival being international has 'given cover' to people from the different 'groups' to attend. The presence of guests from Croatia and Serbia (as well as other Balkan states) has been particularly important in this respect. The focus of these activities has been cultural or educational. This has prevented a situation where people feel manipulated into 'peaceful coexistence' or 'reconciliation' on someone else's terms or agenda.
Since 1999, each February, the Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina is organising the International Conference. Until now, we realised the International Conferences under the following titles: “The causes of violence amongst young people and the role that theatre and drama can play in dealing with them”; “The role of theatre and drama in protecting children’s rights”; “Theatre and boundaries”; “The healing power of theatre”; “Where are we now?”; “Multicultural dialogue: chance or problem?”.
Since 1998, the Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina has established an international award called the “Grozdanin Kikot” - award for five individuals/organisations who have made significant contributions to the development of drama education. Some of the laureates of this Award are: Eugenio Barba, Denmark; Augusto Boal, Brazil; Josef Krofta, Czech Republic; Linna Atel, Jordan; Nicos Govas, Greece; George Soros, USA; Guy Williams, UK; Vladimir Milcin, FYR of Macedonia; Gradimir Gojer, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Vladimir Krusic, Croatia; Ljubica Beljanski Ristic, Serbia and Montenegro; Stig Erricson, Norway…
Since 1999 the Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina prepares and publishes the only magazine for drama, theatre and education in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Throughout these years, this magazine became a regular Magazine for theatre, drama and education workers in this area, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. Apart from the editing board from Bosnia and Herzegovina, our co-operators are also Vlado Krušić (Croatia, HCDO), Jelena Sitar (Slovenia, director), Ljubica Beljanski-Ristić (Serbia, CEDEUM), Milan Mađarev (Serbia, theatrologist) and many others.
The Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in co-operation with the Mostar Youth Theatre and the Network of Independent Theatres, is organiser of the International Festival of Authorial Poetry in which, until now, have participated individuals and groups from all continents. This Festival is a place of meeting of important world theatres, artists and young people who are beginning their work in the world of theatre. On the “Alternative Academy”, which is a part of the Festival, some of the most important one-week workshop leaders have so far been: Katcura Kan, Japan; Marcos Martinez, USA; Julian Boal, France; Zigmunt Molik, Poland; Ana Wolf, Argentina; Marco Lully, Italia; Julia Varley, Denmark; Roberta Carerri, Denmark; Charles Renault, Netherlands; Victor Goultchenko, Russia; Jelena Sitar, Slovenia; Zeljko Vukmirica, Croatia; Ferid Karajica, Serbia and Montenegro…
Since 2003, each year in April we are organising the BH Festival of secondary schools’ theatre groups. The duration of each festival is one week and all festival participants are present all the time in the festival. Usually on each Festival are 8 groups with approx. 100 young people – participants. Also, during each organization of this festival, 15 leaders of these youth theatre groups and 5 theatre artists are participating in discussions about performances, as well as leading workshops for participants and group leaders.
Since 2001, each May the Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina is organising the Festival of Children’s Theatre groups. This Festival is taking place in Gračanica and it is 3 days long. The children of 10 theatre groups from all Bosnia and Herzegovina are present during all festival time. The group leaders and the school teachers are holding several workshops, in which they present how they work in schools using drama and theatre as a tool for education.
The main aim of these events is to stimulate drama education and its systematic introduction in schools as a part of the future school curriculum.
In November of each year CDOBiH is organizing a Forum of Drama Writers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Jury chooses 5 new drama texts and 5 youth theatre groups with 5 directors are invited on a period of one week. Together with the writers, they work to create stage readings of drama texts. After this one-week work, there is a presentation of all 5 groups to a public audience. This joint work aims to help young writers, but also directors and young actors. This work provides them research for new ideas and the opportunity to check ways of continuing to the final product – to the performance.
The Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a member of IDEA, enjoys co-ordination with this association. With member associations representing more than 50 countries around the globe, the International Drama/Theatre and Education Association aims to promote and advocate drama/theatre as part of a full human education and to provide an international forum for those working as drama/theatre educators throughout the world. Members of each member association are automatically accepted as members of IDEA by virtue of their organization's status as a member association. IDEA's activities include publications, projects, international congresses and meetings, the dissemination of research and the international exchange of drama/theatre workers.
Since 1999, The Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina is involved in the Art for Social Change programme of the European Cultural Foundation. Through this Programme, the Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina realised several Projects, which are addressed to the young people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the first programme - Play Against Violence 1 - created a network of professionals established in South-Eastern Europe (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia).
The Centre for Drama Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with the Mostar Youth Theatre and the Network of Independent Theatres, participated in the second programme - Play Against Violence 2, in the Projects: Network, Steps and To stay or to go, DELTA, The Power of Drama against Juvenile Violence, etc.