LAST UPDATE:

ACTIVITIES IN THE JANUARY OF 2010

During the month, hCa/ORC Tuzla worked on the on its regular activities - processing of information of interest to youth activism and distribution of the same to the youth organizations and members of the mailing list of the Youth Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as editing and distributing of the Monthly Newsletter of the Youth Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the regular update of the web site: www.omladina-bih.net.
In the partnership project "Regional Youth Action against the Discrimination" with participants from NGOs and activists from Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Tuzla Youth Resource Center and Youth Club "Under the Same Sun" Jablanica), during January, we 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. We are in the finishing stages of the processing of the analysis, which we will publish on our web page in the following few days, send it via mailing list, and send hard copies to all those who want to have it.
Conclusions and recommendations of the analysis
Based on the obtained research results, it can be concluded that the majority of the population of B&H (71% of the respondents) is familiar with some sorts of discrimination. Given that the survey included the population of different age, and ethnic interest groups, we come to the conclusion that discrimination is a ubiquitous phenomenon that is projected in all layers of society in B&H. Results of the statistically processed data obtained in the FB&H, RS and Brcko District are generally very similar or identical, which shows that discrimination in Bosnia and Herzegovina does not recognize political and entity boundaries, but has the same or similar impact on individuals, regardless of which entity or district of B&H they live in. Although discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity and religious affiliation are the most common forms of discrimination in B&H that the survey participants are familiar with, many other forms have also been mentioned that are present in B&H, which just shows how deep impact discrimination in Bosnia has on the individuals; music discrimination, media discrimination, discrimination against children, sexual and many other types of discrimination were subsequently added to the comments on the survey questionnaire.
In relation to discrimination that young people in B&H are exposed to speak the research results on the B&H level, which express that there are 88% of those who think that young people are victims of discrimination in B&H, and generally suffer discrimination in the areas of obtaining work and education whilst there is the smallest percentage of those who suffer from discrimination in the family.
More than 60% of respondents have no information about the existence of law in Bosnia which bans discrimination, but they are quite familiar with the ways and forms of discrimination that are part of the law. This shows that the law on the prohibition of discrimination is in fact well prepared and well done but that it is very poorly presented to the general public in B&H.
When talking about the most common victims of discrimination in Bosnia one can come to the conclusion that these are minorities, young people and women.
The situation with those who should protect the rights of endangered populations, the institution of Human Rights Ombudsmen of B&H, i.e. the citizens informed of their existence, according to the results of this study, is catastrophic.
Total of 70% of citizens, in general, do not know what is the Ombudsman institution in B&H and out of the remaining 30% of those who declared that they know what the institution of the Ombudsman is, only 64% of them gave correct or partially correct answers.
However, the encouraging fact (only in the field of information of a large part of citizens) are the results answering the question concerning the largest national minority in B&H, where 63% of the people themselves declared to know the answer to the question which is the largest national minority, and even 89% of them gave the correct answer. But the fact that 11% of those who thought they know the answer to this question, and even 37% of those who were not aware of the fact that the Roma are the largest ethnic minorities, leads to the conclusion that the problems of this population and their exposure to various forms of discrimination are the results of misunderstanding and general unconcern by the citizens to deal with this topic. Thus we come to results that suggest that the situation in the field of Roma employment, for more than a decade, has not changed in Bosnia, and still most of the respondents, 82% of them, thought that there is less than 3% of employed Roma in B&H, and unfortunately that is correct. Part of the answer to this question, partly and unfortunately, lies in the fact that a large number of Roma children (more than 80%) do not attend compulsory primary education.
Although children in schools, in the lessons of history, religion and language and literature, learn about other ethnic groups, extra-curricular activities which deal with issues of human rights, and seminars on these topics also have an important role.
Large dose of indifference and apathy is shown by 53% of respondents who do not have any opinion on discrimination in B&H, whilst encouraging are the opinions of the minority of the respondents who in their views of discrimination generally condemn this phenomenon and call for concrete actions to stop and prevent discrimination.
Citizens generally cite the war and ethnic division, ethnic stereotypes and prejudices and politics and political parties as the main cause of discrimination in B&H.
Following this research, quite naturally and at the recommendation of those who gave their opinion about corruption in B&H through the survey sheet, we recommend the following (though of course the number of recommendations might have been larger, which would have been a part of the very comprehensive analysis of results):
It is necessary to implement a greater number of activities focused on issues of corruption in B&H, especially in the areas of discrimination on gender, ethnic and religious affiliation
Initiate activities in the field of protection of the rights of young people and equal opportunities for obtaining work and education in B&H
Activities related to the promotion of the law for prohibition of discrimination in B&H should be done
Strengthen the capacity of associations that protect the rights of national minorities, youth and women in B&H to resist the discrimination
Informational campaigns with the aim of the presentation of the institution of the Ombudsman for Human Rights in B&H, for all the citizens of B&H and especially organizations that represent the interests of national minorities, youth and women should be done
Initiate activities for the promotion of the rights of the Roma population in B&H, for strengthening their economic situation and the involvement in the education system
Increase the role of schools, through formal and informal education in promoting tolerance and learning about other ethnic groups in order to break stereotypes and prejudices
Work on strengthening of the civil sector in B&H in order to effectively fight the discrimination and raise awareness amongst citizens should be done
Work on the awareness of political leaders in B&H to address problems of discrimination should be done
"Less talk - more work!!!" - the recommendation of the survey participants
We started preparations for organizing the training for trainers in the project, "Yes, You(th) Can", which is supported by the Balkan Trust for Democracy. Training will be held in late February, and will be attended by the 25 young people - representatives of youth organizations that are the members of the Youth Network in B&H. In the next few days, after we define exact place and date, we will send the invitations.

ACTIVITIES PLANNED FOR FEBRUARY 2010

Continuation of work of hCa / ORC Tuzla on a regular distribution of information to youth organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as editing and distributing the Monthly Newsletter of the Youth Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
Distribution and promotion of the analysis, "Social Cohesion - Equal Participation of the Minorities in B&H";
Preparations for organizing the public debate in the Brcko District. The debate that is within the partnership project "Regional Youth Action against Discrimination" will be held in the first half of March.

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