Youth from Berlin visited Sarajevo from June 18 to 25, 2016 as a part of the transnational youth project entitled “Between Diversity and Division”.
“Between Diversity and Division” is a 9-month educational partnership completed with 2 youth encounters. The first encounter was organized in Berlin in February. The hosts of the return visit were representatives of the Institute for Youth Development KULT, the Historical Museum of BiH, representatives of High School of Economics of Sarajevo and the “Motus Adulescenti” Youth Association from East Sarajevo.
As a part of the project, youth studied the occurences from the time period of World War II in Germany and the Ex-SFRY, the causes and consequences, with focus on the topic of resistence, front, position of women and concentartion camps. The participants conducted their own research, with the help of a rich program and visits to Berlin and in Sarajevo.
During their stay in Sarajevo, youth visited the cultural and historical landmarks and tourist attraction, talked to the representative of the Jewish community in BiH Eli Tauber on persecutions of Jews in BiH, and the exhibitions were introduced to them by curators Elma Hodži? and Amar Karapuš, who aided them in developing a final presentation.
The project participants at the Historical Museum attended the accounts of participants of the greatest resistance movement against the Axis powers in the Balkans during World War II. The Partisans shared their wartime experiences with youth and some of their comments were included in the final presentation.
“I have learned a lot through the several-month project “Between Diversity and Division”. The theory I have learned about a long time ago in elementary school on the topic of World War II is nothing in comparison to the “living” history we felt together in places of killings of civilians in World War II. The project provided many things for us. We learned that war is more than what we had learned, that the loss is not just a capitulation of a country, but every individual life that was lost.” – Nada Isovi?, graduate student of the High School of Economics in Sarajevo.
The final activity was the presentation during which the project participants presented new knowledge acquired through learning about this thematic, with a strong message that it is precisely youth that should be working on preventing the future wars through education, fighting prejudice and fighting for freedom. This form of non-formal learning managed to develop new attitudes in participants of both countries.
The project was financed by the German “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” Foundation with the Europeans for Peace Program (intended for international youth projects).
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