Participants and their coaches digging the foundation for a new home for a disadvantaged family.
Youth for Peace, a URI CC from Bosnia and Herzegovina, organized Peace Summer School. This Peace Summer School was organized in period from 21st till 30th August 2016 in Banja Luka, in cooperation with Caritas Banja Luka, Caritas Italiana and Caritas Vittorio Veneto. The school brought together 25 participants from Italy and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as 10 trainers from Youth for Peace.
In the first part of Peace Summer School, participants had the opportunity to attend different workshops, which were about assertive communication, active listening and inter-religious dialogue. Additionally, participants had the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the religious traditions which are present in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They had a workshop about Islam and Islamic holidays, like Eid, and they had an opportunity to taste baklava, Eid’s traditional dessert. During the workshop about Judaism, participants found out what a wedding ceremony looks like. At the workshop on Orthodoxy, participants had a chance to see an Orthodox wedding. Guests from Italy prepared a workshop about Catholicism. After the workshops, participants had a chance to meet Banja Luka through an interactive game, where they visited the most important monuments of the city and took a handful of photos.
The second part of the Summer School consisted of 5 work actions, which offered young volunteers different activities, as well as the opportunity to contribute to the wider community and to people in need of support. Both participants and their coaches dug the foundations for a new home for a family that had so far lived in a modest trailer. They replaced the benches, painted over the fence, and cleared Trappist cemetery St. Ivo, as well as painted and cleaned three houses belonging to socially vulnerable people.
After this Peace Summer School, during the International Day of Peace, a small group of Peace Summer School participants spent some quality time together in Sarajevo. They had the opportunity to get to know each other more. They visited religious monuments and had a chance to revise all that they have learned during Peace Summer School in Banja Luka.
As Albert Einstein once said: ’’Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.’’
Youth for Peace CC is working towards getting young people together and giving them a chance to understand themselves and each other.
Miljanovi? Ljiljana,
Youth for Peace-Bosnia and Herzegovina
