The piloting phase of the ROUTE WB6 scheme, a regional cross-border volunteer exchange program, is coming to an end. As a partner and contact point for the program in BiH, the Institute for Youth Development KULT organized a meeting with partners, volunteers, and volunteer organizers from BiH who took part in implementing the program.
The meeting provided participants from various roles within the ROUTE WB6 program with the chance to discuss experiences, lessons learned, and recommendations for enhancing program schemes, alongside representatives from the RYCO Regional Youth Cooperation Office and the monitoring and evaluation expert, Ms. Blerjana Bino.
The Institute’s comprehensive state-level research on youth needs, the first survey of its kind since 2013, shows that one in three young people in BiH volunteer, and that youth consider volunteering an effective tool for achieving positive social change.
The pilot scheme ROUTE WB6 demonstrates how volunteering, especially cross-border, serves as a tool to bridge social and ethnic divides among young people in the region, encouraging the adoption of European social values that promote reconciliation, stability, and prosperity in the Western Balkans.
In just a few months, over 200 young people from the Western Balkans took part in the exchange program. Over 20 young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina volunteered at festivals and cultural and sports events such as the South Outdoor Festival in Borš and Tirana Marathon in Albania, Bitola Open City Festival and D-Fest in Dojran in North Macedonia, Beldosco and Euroijade in Serbia, and Ocean Lava in Montenegro. Two young and motivated volunteers from Bosnia and Herzegovina dedicated nearly two months in the fall and early winter to volunteering at the Youth Cultural Center in Bitola and the Young Explorers of Serbia in Belgrade.
At the same time, Bosnia and Herzegovina hosted almost 40 young people from the Western Balkans who volunteered at the BiH Color Festival in Brčko, the Street Arts Festival in Mostar, the Human Rights Film Festival in Sarajevo. Three motivated young volunteers from Albania spent two months supporting the activities of the Association for Addiction Prevention NARKO-NE from Sarajevo and the Association Zdravo da Ste from Banja Luka.
The overall objective of the Route WB6 project is to make young people from the WB region drivers of reconciliation and societal reconstruction, enabling them to apply European values and initiate and lead intercultural dialogue and regional cooperation towards socio-economic and democratic development.
The Institute for Youth Development KULT is the contact point in BiH and part of a consortium led by the RYCO Regional Youth Cooperation Office in cooperation with organizations from the Western Balkans. The project is implemented with the support of Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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