|
Written by: Samir Alic
Kristina, Sanel, Pero and Ivica are teenagers from Capljina and members of
an informal youth group in Capljina. Employees of the OSCE Mission to BiH field
office in that small town in Herzegovina are already used to their presence
at the OSCE premises. It is not difficult to get used to young and cheerful
people full of energy and ideas that have just completed their first project.
Together with another six young people, they organised “Youth Day” in Capljina.
The youth group gathered at the beginning of May this year as part of the Youth
Programme of the German non-governmental organisation “GTZ”. Once a month, young
people from Capljina meet at seminars and workshops with other informal youth
groups from Trebinje, Nevesinje and Siroki Brijeg. The most frequent topics
of these workshops are the need to strengthen team work, volunteering, networking,
project creation and information campaigns. After such trainings, the groups
are assigned tasks by their GTZ coordinators.
“We successfully completed our first task, the organisation of a Youth Day”,
said Kristina Vrankic, a student in the fourth grade of high school in Capljina.
“We managed to gather young people for three events on 26 August 2005. First,
we organised a workshop for young people at the Kralja Tomislava Square, where
we had placed a big white canvas for writing various messages and drawings.
After that, there was a volleyball tournament held with eight teams from the
entire region, and everything ended with a concert by a band from Capljina ‘Kameni
Spavaci’ in the Sports Centre of Capljina” added Kristina.
Though the attendance at these events was not too large, the group members
are still satisfied. “An important thing is that we know where our mistakes
were, we learned a lot from this experience and now we know how to do it next
time. We must have a better information campaign and we must make the media
interested." said Sanel Novic from Traffic High School in Capljna. "A
large amount of help was given to us by the OSCE employees in Capljina. They
gave us advice, provided a room where we used their equipment for preparatory
work and made billboards for the Youth Day. For that we are very grateful”.
The OSCE Mission to BiH co-operates closely with youth groups and municipal
officials on promoting the active participation of young people in public life.
“Having a group of young, open-minded and motivated people in Capljina definitely
deserves attention. This, and the fact that the Democratisation and Public Administration
Reform Department is structured in a way that it works closely with the civil
society sector, with the youth segment being part of it; explains why capacity
building and support to viable youth groups are part of our everyday work”,
explained Daut Bajramovic, a Democratisation Officer in the OSCE Mission to
BiH field office in Capljina. The next step is action with the municipal authorities
through an information campaign under the motto “Young People Can Make it Better”.
“We want to make the Mayor and his officials interested in our work, in order
to accomplish some goals for the improvement of the status of young people and
their social life in this town. Apart from that, we want to see in the Municipal
Council someone who will stand up for the interests of young people”, said Pero
Obad, a student of the third grade of the high school in Capljina.
In order to make it all happen, they are currently busy with their campaign
preparations. They will print leaflets and make billboards, and prepare t-shirts
with their motto printed. As Ivica Simunovic claims, another member of the informal
group, there are many proposals, but in the beginning they should focus on the
basic ones: “The Municipality could help us in obtaining some premises for meeting,
at which we could establish an internet club and start with some youth sections”.
This could be an excellent start to transform the informal youth group into
a respectable association that could push to include young people in the cultural,
sports and political life of Capljina through their initiatives. In a country
where the majority of citizens are disappointed with almost all political options,
it is necessary to strengthen the spirit and activities of young people through
fresh initiatives.
|
