INTER CAMPUS, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: SARAJEVO AND DOMANOVICI CENTRES

The Inter Campus visit ahead of the COEXIST event, focusing on the Balkans

SARAJEVO – While waiting to share our own experiences in Bosnia and Herzegovina and take part in ‘COEXIST, The Art of Peace’ – an event that will take place on Sunday 29 September at the Teatro Elfo Puccini in Milan and will be open to the public – the Inter Campus delegation returned to the Balkans for their first seasonal visit.

After two flights, a missed connection and an 8-hour stopover, Francesco Quattrin – in his first Inter Campus trip – Silvio Guareschi and Lorenzo Forneris finally landed, ready to continue their work with the Sarajevo and Domanovici (Mostar) centres.

There was a fantastic surprise waiting for them in Domanovici: Zorica Rajic, technical coordinator of the local partner, the Associazione Fabio vita nel mondo NPO, managed to have a lovely synthetic grass pitch put down just a few minutes away from the school in Domanovici. The installation of the pitch has allowed us to expand the pool of children enrolled in the project to 6 additional schools; 3 Muslim and 3 Croatian Catholic. They are not mixed schools like the one in Domanovici, but ones in the same area that so far have no possibilities for an exchange of contact and other activities. The possibility of expanding the ongoing integration project was viewed as something very positive and demonstrated the importance and efficiency of Inter Campus in such a delicate environment as Domanovici.

From Domanovici the delegation then headed off to Sarajevo, where they were welcomed by the local partner Sprofondo Bezdan, a socio-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious centre (http://www.sprofondo.ba/). Sprofondo has shown itself to be a true focal point for all the families and children in the Grbavica neighbourhood and beyond. A new instructor, Ahmed, is assisting Yasmin and together they manage to carry out the activities not only in the centre, sharing the duties between toddlers and older kids over two days, but they also hope to continue taking Inter Campus to the two orphanages in Bjelave and in S.O.S. Kinderdorf.

For those who wish to participate in the ‘COEXIST, The Art of Peace’ event, it will take place on Sunday 29 September at 17:00 at the Teatro Elfo Puccini in Milan. Inter Campus will be taking part in the discussion, which will be followed by Balkan refreshments and a show by Loredana Butti.

29.09.2013