Adoption of the Law on Volunteering in the Federation of BiHwill provide the young people with the mechanisms available for developing their own personalities, ability to acquire skills and experiences they could not gain during their formal education, their volunteering experience will be acknowledged and assessed during a hiring process, which will greatly alleviate the discrimination of young people in the labour market since employers require a record of at least a two-year work experience.
In youth sector development, volunteering is of great importance and it offers a great potential for social capital to become developed through such activities. Unemployment among the young people in BiH is enormous, that is about 40%, and there is a great interest in the youth sector to gain work experience, develop skills and help the community by volunteering.
With this Project, we have worked towards having the Law on Volunteering in the Federation of BiH adopted and towards developing sustainable cooperation mechanisms between the governmental authorities and the youth sector through the implementation of yet unimplemented, however important items of the entity youth laws. Our future efforts will focus on promoting this law and cooperating with the competent authorities on its implementation.
More specifically, this Project has 1) publicly advocated the adoption of the Proposed Law and Draft Law on Volunteering in the Federation of BiH, 2) held public hearings in relation to the Law on Volunteering in the Cantons of the Federation of BiH, 3) made the Draft Law on Volunteering, 4) sent the Draft Law for adoption.
In the following period, the Project will work on promoting the legislation.
For the duration of the Project, cooperation was developed and the project work was conducted with the Parliament of FBiH, the Commission for Coordination of Youth Issues of the House of Representatives, the public in the Federation of BiH which took part in public discussions about volunteering (non-governmental organisations, non-formal groups, initiatives, individuals), local governmental entities in the Federation of BiH, youth organisations throughout the country, youth councils from all around BiH.
The Project beneficiaries are competent municipal, cantonal and entity authorities throughout BiH, volunteers and particularly passive young people, marginalized groups of young people, non-governmental organisations.
The Project outcome will increase the opportunities and advantages of volunteering through adoption of the legal framework; create sustainable cooperation mechanisms between the governmental and non-governmental youth sector, and initiatives of young people to represent their interests through cooperation on youth projects and youth strategy, which contributes to improving the overall quality of life of youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Formal Project Partners:
Commission for Coordination of Youth Issues with the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament
Other Partners:
UNV Working Group for drafting the Law on Volunteering
Project contact:
Amila Hodzic, amila.hodzic@kultbih.org
Leave a comment