The partner organizations – Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Republika Srpska and Center for Equitable Regional Development – CenTriR organized a seminar for 32 secondary school students from eight border municipalities and cities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia from February 6-9, 2014 in Srebrenica, at boarding house “Misirlije”.
During the seminar which was realized within the project “Youth – Most Important Driving Engine of our Region,” the students from Srebrenica, Foca, Visegrad, Gorazde, Prijepolje, Nova Varos, Zlatibor and Uzice discussed the topics including human rights, minority rights and the mechanisms for their protection, the concept of interculturalism and multiculturalism, stereotypes and prejudice, non-violent communication and peaceful conflict resolution.
“We keep saying that our young people are passive and do not have interest in solving their problems, but they often show us in some innovative ways that all they need is an opportunity and support to do so”, said Mirjana Trifkovic from the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Republika Srpska.
Following the seminar in Srebrenica, this group of secondary school students will be traveling to Zlatibor in March of 2014, where they will learn about youth activism and create action plans to address the most frequent problems facing this population in local communities. The action plans within the campaign “Our Rights – Your Duties” will be implemented in cooperation with the Youth Commissions/Youth Offices and local authorities in respective local communities.
The results of the research, which was conducted at the beginning of this project, showed that young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia have exactly the same opinion about the problems they face on daily basis. Secondary school students singled out the three major problems as most important: poor education system, poverty and unemployment. The funding for the project was secured by the European Union under the IPA Cross-border Programme Serbia – Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Additional information can be found here
FENA, Radio „Prijatelji Srebrenice“ i Radio Slobodna Evropa published news about the event
