LAST UPDATE:

ACTIVITIES OF ORC/hCa IN DECEMBER 2011

YOUTH ECO LEADERSHIP CORPS

PRONI Centre for Youth Development Brcko in cooperation with Center for Sustainable Development (CSD), Center for Energy Efficiency (CEEF), Youth Informative Agency (OIA), and bearer of the project Youth Build International from Boston, has started the implementation of USAID's project "Youth Eco Leadership Corps" which is financed by the US people. Project is implemented in 28 municipalities in the area of northeast BiH, the surroundings of Srebrenica, Tuzla, Brcko and Bijeljina.

Youth Resource Center (ORC) Tuzla is a partner in this project for Tuzla region.

Project has for an aim the engagement of 720 young people (18 to 30 years old), which will during the 18 months of implementation, in groups of 30, undergo the training in leadership, technical skills from ecology, environment protection, energy efficiency and practical field work. After expert training the teams will focus on protection of environment and managing of its resources, as well as production of solar lamps intended for 800 homes from rural areas.

Out of 720 young people 80 of them will also undergo the specialized training for development of business ideas from named areas, after which 10 best ideas will receive funds in the amount of 1000 US$.

Within this project, from 12 to 16 of December in Brcko was organized a training "Leadership Development", "Weatherization" and "Energy Efficiency".

On training, presenting ORC Tuzla, besides Maja Vlajic - Eco Team Leader for Tuzla region, was also the director of Youth Resource Center, Miralem Tursinovic.

Also, during the December we have contacted young people from the Youth Network BiH to join the project Youth Eco Leadership Corps, more precisely the Youth Council.

Also, arranged was the broadcasting of announcement (which can be found in this bulletin) "Call for Youth Eco Leadership Corps" on Radio Kameleon from Tuzla. The broadcasting of the announcement starts on 5 January 2012 and will last until 5 February 2012.

In Tuzla, from 6 to 10 of February, basic training for 30 young Eco Leaders will be held. More information about this project can be found in the next issue of monthly bulletin, and on our mailing list.

REGIONAL YOUTH NETWORKING AGAINST DISCRIMINATION OF WESTERN BALKANS

Within this partnership project, which includes NGOs from Macedonia, Serbia, BiH and Kosovo, we have started the preparations for setting up a web page: www.stopdiskriminacija.net.

In the following period you will be able to find out about the activities, partners, calls and similar on this web page.

DURING THE DECEMBER WE HAVE ALSO WORKED ON:

MAINTENANCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNICATION AND COORDINATION WITHIN THE YOUTH NETWORK OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (www.omladina-bih.net)

Daily on the mailing list of the network (posta@omladina-bih.net), and on other addresses in B&H and region, we have distributed information of interest to youth and youth activism in B&H (calls for workshops, seminars, conferences, calls for project applications, jobs, scholarships, other activities);

We have maintained and updated on regular basis the information on our web page www.omladina-bih.net;

We have distributed the information which we received from youth organizations and individuals from the Network to the abroad (international organizations, organizations in region, donors);

We corresponded with the organizations and individuals interested in work of the network, replied on the questionnaires related to certain activities, educations and other information related to activism of youth in B&H.

PLANNED ACTIVITIES FOR THE JANUARY OF 2012

ACTIVITIES OF ANNA LINDH NETWORK BiH (www.euromedalex.org)

During January we will work on the preparation of application for STEP 5 ALF BiH. The follow up activities within ALF BiH should start in March.

Continuation of work of hCa/ORC Tuzla on the regular distribution of information towards the youth organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the editing and the distribution of the Monthly bulletin of Youth Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In January, Viviane Gendrot, a volunteer from AEC Paris, France, will join the ORC Tuzla team. She will, in period from January to May, help our organization in the preparation of this years' SIDU (Summer School for International Dialogue and Understanding) 2012, which will most probably br held in summer of 2012 in Fojnica, in the organization of ORC/hCa Tuzla and AEC France. Around 40 young people from BiH, and European countries, will participate in SIDU. There will be more information about this in the following issues of monthly bulletin.

"REGIONAL YOUTH ACTION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION"
Social cohesion, equal participation of minorities in B&H

Discrimination of youth and national minorities in area of education
DEBATE IN BIJELJINA

REPORT

ORC Tuzla, within the project "Regional youth action against discrimination", has in the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010 made an analysis of situation about participation of minorities and general knowledge of the rights of minorities and the situation in which the minorities in B&H are, titled: "Social cohesion, equal participation of minorities in B&H."
1526 questionnaires were filled out, out of which 662 in Federation B&H, 764 in Republic of Srpska and 100 questionnaires in Brcko District.

One of the main goals of this project is before everything else to raise the awareness of citizens of B&H about the importance of fight against the discrimination in B&H and region, with special highlight on the youth.

By the received results of the Analysis were defined the following areas where the youth are mostly exposed to discrimination in Bijeljina:
1. Employment
2. Schools system
3. Housing

With received data that in Bijeljina the most frequent victims of discrimination are national minorities, youth and women, and that the large number of respondents in their commentaries call for concrete actions with the aim of facing and solving the problem of discrimination ORC Tuzla has organized a debate in Bijeljina on the subject of "Discrimination of youth and national minorities in area of education" on which were invited all relevant subjects from all the social areas in Bijeljina so as to make it possible in the best way to get to concrete recommendations and propositions for future actions so that in Bijeljina the situation in which the youth and minorities feel discriminated in the issue of educational process and system of education could be changed for better.

The debate was attended, as panellists, by:

Miralem Tursinovic - Director of ORC Tuzla
Bojana Sekulic - Manager for education in PRONI Centre for Youth Development

The voice of youth, national minorities, and citizens of Bijeljina were expressed by representatives of educational institutions, municipal government of Bijeljina, youth organizations, political parties, as well as few of the pupils and students from Bijeljina and representatives of OSCE, field office Bijeljina.

The debate was held on 21st of October 2010 in premises of the People's Library "Filip Visnjic" in Bijeljina, with the participation of around 30 participants, and very good media coverage of the very event by the local and state media. Debate lasted for two hours; moderator of debate was Jasmin Jasarevic from PRONI Centre for youth development.

This debate was ideal chance for the representatives of government and institutions to hear the opinion of youth and minorities on this subject, and to start serious dialogue with them with the aim of solving these problems. Unfortunately, this opportunity was partially missed, since the most responsible people from educational institutions and larger number of representatives form municipal government and representatives from institutions of higher education did not came to the debate.

Since only one representative of municipal government of Bijeljina (Samer El Chekh) was present at the debate, he took active participation in it. On the very beginning he pointed out the stand of Ministry and Municipality of Bijeljina that the discrimination concerning national minorities, i.e. Roma population, is not existing in that and such way, and which was later confirmed by almost every participant, we came to the contradictory data, where the results of the questionnaire show great level of discrimination of youth, and especially national minorities in Bijeljina.

On the other hand, youth and representatives of civil organizations who took active participation in the debate have only proved recommendations and findings of the very research and analysis of research which call on concrete actions and which show that the discrimination of national minorities and discrimination in education is present.

Some of the discussants have tried to disprove that as much as it was possible and the impression was gained that not only there is no discrimination of national minorities and youth in Bijeljina, but also that Municipality of Bijeljina can serve as an example to some European states!

This contradiction was brought forth numerous times during the debate and almost all participants in the debate, except for Miss Sekulic, have in one way or another agreed with the representatives of municipality and school system. Even more, during the largest part of the debate few times stands like one that Roma population is in privileged position (they get free school books, sandwiches, etc.) were mentioned, and that Roma "are for nothing else but collection of secondary raw materials" and other, usually offensive, comments about the Roma population and discussants who work with Roma population.

Because of the obvious misunderstanding concerning this theme, moderator (on the signal of the organizer) tried to direct the debate to the problems which youth have in general and the question why do they feel discriminated, but in this theme also, just like in the previous one, was tried to first of all discredit the very research and findings of the research.

Debate was started with the introductory part where Mr. Miralem Tursinovic briefly informed the particiapants about the project "Regional Youth Action against Discrimination" and about the results and recommendations of research concerning the discrimination in B&H.

After Miralem, Miss Bojana Sekulic spoke to the participants of the debate where she connected the results of analysis with the implementation of Youth Policy of Municipality of Bijeljina and work of municipality with the Roma population.

After the introductory part discussion followed on which entirely 8 participants, some of them multiple times, stated their stands, their experiences, asked questions, and gave their propositions and recommendations for further work concerning this subject.

The debate had a very dynamic atmosphere with small number of proposals and examples of discrimination but with great amount of emotional charge in attempts to discredit the research and the organizer and with the judgement of municipal government whose representatives did not come in larger numbers.

Finally, despite everything, certain recommendations and conclusions were made which can serve as the basis for further act in the field of involvement of youth and national minorities in the educational system of Municipality of Bijeljina.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

- Additional education of the parents of children of Roma population is needed for the goal of increase of number of Roma children included in the educational system
- To implement mechanisms of additional motivation for Roma to involve them in educational system
- To conduct more extensive research which will concretely be focused on the most important results in the area of discrimination in employment, education and solving of housing problem of youth in Bijeljina
- More education from the area of discrimination, which will be systematically conducted - in the first grade of high school
- Education of representatives of municipal government to hear out the opinions of youth

- Click here to see some photos from this event

Miralem Tursinovic - hCa / ORC Tuzla
Jasmin Jasarevic - PRONI Brcko

PARTICIPANTS IN THE PUBLIC DEBATE:

Semir Selimovic - ORC/hCa Tuzla
Mario Vranjes - ORC/hCa Tuzla
Jasmin Jasarevic - PRONI Centre Brcko
Bojana Sekulic - PRONI Centre Bijeljina
Tatjana Ristic - PRONI Centre Brcko
Adis Imamovic - Radio PAN/PRONI Centre Brcko
Samer El Chekh - Municipality of Bijeljina
Goran Solakovic - Youth Centre Bijeljina
Svetlana Krstic - Youth Centre Bijeljina
Kristina Markovic - Grammar school "Filip Visnjic" Bijeljina
Milanka Nikic - OSCE Bijeljina
Ankica Todorovic - OSCE Bijeljina
Risto Vukovic - OSCE Bijeljina
Velislav Misura - Svetosavska omladinska zajednica
Ranko Rankic - Primary school "Jovan Ducic" Bijeljina
Sonja Pereidija - Svetosavska omladinska zajednica
Nevena Tomic - Agricultural and medical school
Sanja Todorovic - Agricultural and medical school
Sandra Vukeljic - PRONI volunteer
Andjelko Grnja - Association of Slovaks of Bijeljina
Ljiljan Polic - Medical school
Vanja Markovic - PRONI volunteer
Ljilja Gnjatic - RTV "Slobomir"
Kristina Jeftic - "IN" Television
Jadranka Todorovic - NTV "Arena"
Z. Panic - MEDIA AGENCY "Srna"
Goran Gajic - RTV BN
Vesna Jeftic - RTRS
Boris Sekulic - Semberske novine
Goran Bolic - EURO BLIC
Miralem Tursinovic - hCa / ORC Tuzla

"Regional Youth Action against the Discrimination"
"Social convergence, equal participation of minorities in B&H"

Discrimination of youth and ethnic minorities in field of employment
BRCKO DEBATE

REPORT

At the end of 2009 and in begging of 2010, ORC Tuzla (as part of project "Regional Youth Action against the Discrimination") worked on the development of statistics and analysis of the situation "Social convergence, equal participation of minorities in B&H". One of the main objectives of this project is primarily to raise awareness of citizens of B&H about the importance of combating discrimination in B&H and the region, with special emphasis on youth.

Results of this activity shoved that greatest level of discriminations for youth in Brcko District BiH are in following areas:
1. Employment
2. School system
3. Discrimination by government of Brcko District BiH

Click here for more detail and to see photos

REPORT FROM TRANING FOR TRAINERS

Place: Laktasi, Hotel "SAN"

Date: 25 - 27.02.2010.

Introduction:
During those three days of training participants were teach about basics of training skills and were provided with needed knowledge and gain some practical experience in providing trainings by taking active role as trainer during training duration.

Most of the work was implemented in small groups and interaction during training with practical tasks and group work was assuring group dynamic needed for personal development and raising self esteem at individual participants.

Having in consideration that participants were coming from more that 20 different towns from BiH, training program provided time and space, in free times, for participants to meet and get to knew each other better so that, during working hours, participants were focus on training agenda.

Click here for more detail and to see photos

Place: Brčko, Hotel "Posavina"

Date: 08 - 10.09.2009.

Introduction:
During those three days of training participants were teach about basics of training skills and were provided with needed knowledge and gain some practical experience in providing trainings by taking active role as trainer during training duration.
Most of the work was implemented in small groups and interaction during training with practical tasks and group work was assuring group dynamic needed for personal development and raising self esteem at individual participants.
Having in consideration that participants were coming from more that 20 different towns from BiH, training program provided time and space, in free times, for participants to meet and get to knew each other better so that, during working hours, participants were focus on training agenda.
Participants also showed great interest in topic and motivation to participate sessions was on high level and there were no any critical moments during training.
Great support to training implementation was given by three people from HCA Tuzla office were present whole time of duration of training, supporting trainers and participants with all needed logistics for training.

Achieving the aims of training:
The following aims were set before training:
. Youth acquiring the skills for further pear to peer education,
. Giving possibility to young people of different background (religion and nationality) to understand needs and advantages of joint work in democratic struggle for improvement of life for young people
. Promotion of values of tolerance
. Awareness building about the needs of young people in local communities of the target regions
. Educate youth in democratic instruments for local development
According the evaluation from participants, and trainer evaluation, most of the aims were successfully achieved promising that some of the participants will further move on the process and using experiences from this training start initiatives in their own local community and apply for some future, advanced, training for trainers.
For achieving aims of the training in such high level it is to thanks to the fact that most of the participants had realistic expectations from training and that most of them are active in local NGOs for some time.

Participants:
It was planed that 30 youth participants, 15 form each region, will participate at training but for some objective reasons some participants couldn't join and needed to cancel at last day so total number of participants were 24 participants but all towns cowered by project were represented:
Podrinje region - (Srebrenica, Bratunac, Vlasenica, Sekovići, Zvornik, Milici, Sapna, Zivinice, Bijeljina, Kalesija, Ugljevik, Lopare, Teocak, etc)
North Bosnia region - (Teslic, Brod, Derventa, Doboj, Tesanj, Maglaj, Modrica, Gradacac, Odzak, Brcko, Samac, Orasje, Gracanica, Petrovo etc.)

Trainers:
Both international and local trainers followed the agreed agenda and manage to fulfill all the requirements from program and respond to participants expectations. Trainers as well as whole training methodologies, accommodation, materials used and importance of topic was marked with average mark 4,7 (5 was the highest), based on evaluation questionnaires filled by participants.

Expected results:
Following results were expected from training:
1. to have new group of trainers capable of transferring knowledge to their own local communities and pears
2. newly "produced" trainers will organize similar trainings in their local communities
3. participants will form informal knowledge network and use network as base for further learning and development
4. participants will overcome prejudices regarding people from different ethnic background and start to cooperate amongst each other
5. young people from target areas will increase their participation and visibility in local community and work on promotion of European values

Because some of the expected results are depending on longer term process (3 and 5) we can't talk now about all of the results but for some of them we are quite sure that happened in following results:
1. group of 24 young leaders participated and gain knowledge to transfer that knowledge to their pears
2. 24 new trainers received certificate so they are now ready to implement programs, some possible activities participants have developed on training, and hopefully with support from HCA Tuzla, those activities will be implemented by the end of the year.
5. most visible result was that participants were willing and actively worked with all other participants regardless their ethnicity, at least during training but we believe that this situation will last when participants return home as well

Overall evaluation of training, based on evaluation questionnaires from participants is following:
a) weak -
b) enough -
c) average -
d) good - 21,7%
e) exelent - 78, 3%

Recommendations:
In order to assure that all results are going to be achieved in most significant level it is needed that some follow up actions are implemented:
- give support to certain number of projects of participants and media promotion of project in order to strengthen "newly produced trainers" and increase awareness of local society of their existence
- organize more advanced training for trainer for ones that showed greater interest and shown that have capacities and wiliness to advance and become trainers
- support to development of informal network of participants using mailing list, Facebook or other way of modern communication
- implement evaluation of participants follow up activities in order to measure their involvement in local community and work on promotion of European values

Trainers:
Jasmin Jašarević
Miralem Tursinović
Emir Sejranić