“Strani Vari” is a project that the Local democracy agency of Zavidovici has been implementing for 14 years already. It’s being implemented in partnership with Italian volunteers from the Association “Strani Vari” from Alba, Italy. The name of the project very vividly depicts the project itself. The name is a mixture of Bosnian and Italian words that put together have the following meaning:  “outlandish and mixed”. The aim of the project is to provide entertainment for children and help them spend their summer holiday in a creative and unusual way. Every year groups of Italian and Bosnian animators organize a two-week summer camp and perform many workshops with the children. There are many kinds of workshops – theater, tailoring, art, dance, sport…and even circus. At the end of the camp they have to present what they have learnt on a performance they organize for their parents and fellow citizens.

The project coordinator, Amer Halilovic, tells us his impressions on this project from three different perspectives. As a child Amer had been participating in the “Strani Vari” project for 7 years. After that he became an animator and got a chance to work together with Italian volunteers and organize workshops for children. This year, he was promoted into the coordinator. The promotion carries many responsibilities with itself, from providing workshop materials and forming groups to coordinating all the volunteers.

The segment of the cultural participation of youngsters holds a very important place in this project. Before the beginning of the project a group of Bosnian volunteers got through an educational training in Italy where they took part in creating workshops and where they participated in the workshops themselves  in order to provide the best animations for the children at the camp. Further to this, Bosnian and Italian intercultural nights are organised during the camp with the aim to exchange cultures of these two countries.  Also starting from this year volunteers can participate in the youth exchange “Stand up for your rights” that is being organized as the part of “Strani Vari”.

Text: Ivana Milosavljević

Video: Ivana Milosavljević, Kaja Ljubić, Ajna Krajinić

Montage: Ajna Krajinić I Miloš Breznik

This reportage is part of the Youth correspondents exchange. Youth correspondents from Knjazevac visited Zavidovici.