In the framework of the project “Building Trust By Increasing Youth Capacity in Divided Communities in BiH”, which the initiative of youth for human rights in BiH (YIHR) is implementing in cooperation with the Dutch Embassy, began its three-day conference in Sarajevo today called “Activisim-From Ideas to Action”.
More than 50 activists from Prijedor, Kozarac, Gornji Vakuk-Uskoplja, Novi Travnik and Pale are participating.
Their goal is to connect young people from divided communities and through concrete projects that affect their everyday lives to see what they are interested in and if there are commonalities in the problems in their communities, said the Program Manager of YIHR Dinko Sijerčić.
“Youth in BiH could be more engaged and more concrete. For activism to be efficient, there has to be a concrete goal and there has to be a clearly defined way in order to arrive at the goal’’, said the Deputy Minister for Civil Affairs of BiH Denisa Sijerčić- Maglić.
She said that thanks to this project, she was delighted because she saw greater activism of young people to contribute their ideas so that engagement could be more creative and to foster a new spirit of activism in BiH.
In the period after the war, she thinks that this could be an importance change and a big difference, and said that in the future everything that is considered “healthy activism” should be supported.
“Even if there are too many politicians in BiH, there are more citizens. This means that citizens have a great power to decide how to use it’’, said the first Secretary of the Dutch Embassy to BiH Jantine van Bakel.
According to her, it is astonishing that a large number of citizens who have the potential to use their power are not aware of their own capabilities or do not know in what way to use their strength to change anything.
In doing so, she says, many complain that they are not happy with many things in the local communities.
Given the situation, she concluded that there are few people in BiH who actually try to change anything.
For this reason, this project helped young people recognize the potential and strength that they could contribute to their community.
In the next two days of the conference “Activism-From Ideas to Action” young people will be informed more of activisms through lectures and workshops, and will debate on the position of young people and problems that they have in their local communities.
