The unequal position, role, and therefore the rights of women in smaller communities in our country are often understood as a generally accepted state. In such surrounding, women who want to be more active in society seem to be expected to look for larger environments, where they could implement their ideas.
In 2017, guided precisely by the idea that women, regardless of where they live, should and must be part of various social processes, Mladenka Santrač founded the Association of Women “Viktorija”, with the support of several colleagues and friends. This Association was founded in Pale, one of the six municipalities of the city of East Sarajevo.
“The small number of associations of this type in our city, as well as the fact that there were no associations of this type in our municipality, encouraged me to formally register an association for women, which would be led by women,” Santrač recalls.
She graduated from the Faculty of Security and Peace Studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo and as a student had the opportunity to attend various seminars and trainings organized by civil society organizations for women.
“What was a certain type of problem that I saw was that in smaller communities, such as mine, women with such experience simply did not do much, everything would remain just an idea”, says our interviewee.
With the intention of trying to put the ideas into practice, shortly after the establishment of the Association, she started contacting all women whom she knew and believed would recognize and share Viktorija’s values.
“One of our first activities in that formal sense was participation in the campaign “All equal, all visible”, within the global campaign 16 days of activism against gender-based violence,” says Santrač.
A group of several girls and women quickly organized themselves, photos were taken of women holding messages against violence in order to draw attention to this problem. With great desire and modest means, those photos “overwhelmed” social networks and the media.
“That is when we understood how much we are each other’s biggest support and how important it is that together, using what we have, we start things from scratch, to draw attention to topics to be talked about,” says Santrač.
The activities continued, and with the increase of the number of activities the interest to join the Association grew.
“Let’s be each other’s inspiration, support and friend” is how our interviewee describes the main thread that unites the members of the Association.
“We have created a place from which changes start – whether it is a stronger engagement in the civil sector, whether it is the strengthening of women in politics, whether it is support for women in small businesses, art, culture, these are all directions in which we want to have more women in our Municipality and their work should be promoted”, Santrač points out.
Through cooperation with other organizations from the city of East Sarajevo, such as the Association “Probudi se”, the members of the Association Viktorija began to organize promotions of collections of poems, novels, and film screenings in the local Cultural Center.
The wish of the Association Viktorija was to draw attention to the somewhat neglected female creativity, to the beauty of the written word, and to promote their work.
It was ideas like these that encouraged Snježana Kuntoš Trobok, with the help of members of the Association Viktorija, to organize the promotion of her collection of songs “Life is a Game” in Pale in 2019.
Santrač, together with her colleagues, organized numerous other activities. As she says, it is difficult to single out only one of numerous beautiful and successful stories that arose from the work of the Association, but she emphasizes the selfless support of the Association Women for Women International in almost everything that Viktorija’s members do.
“What helped us to promote our activities to a larger audience in our Municipality, are certainly street actions. Whether it’s about advocating for more women in politics or humanitarian activities, this method of communication proved to be the best option for them to know about us, but also to want to join us”, notes our interviewee.
The fact that there is almost no profession and field from which women did not want to either contribute to the work of the Association themselves or to familiarize themselves with what it offers, speaks of how much Pale needed an association of this kind.
“Some of our members used the opportunity of various trainings, so they opted for administrative work on projects in other associations, some decided to get involved politically, especially at the local level,” explains Santrač.
It is particularly important that the idea of such an association was accepted and supported by women who are in leadership positions of public institutions in the Pale Municipality, local councilors, professors and numerous others.
“Each of us, regardless of our profession, realized that it is important to have our own place from which we can act for the common good, whether it is about organizing the networking of members of organizations in this region, book promotions or something else,” Santrač said.
Our interviewee is particularly proud of one activity of this Association. It is about the advocacy project “Women actors of social change in local communities” within which the idea was initiated and then adopted. The idea was that the hospital “Srbija”, the only hospital in the city of East Sarajevo, introduce a free info telephone line.
In March 2022, the city administration of the city of East Sarajevo formally announced that a free info line with the “Srbija” hospital is in operation. Through this toll-free number, citizens can communicate with the hospital, schedule an examination and obtain other necessary information.
“After everything that happened in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, we realized how important communication with the hospital is, but unfortunately also how often it happens that not everyone can afford such a service. Our wish was that everyone, regardless of their financial status, would have the right to schedule an examination, to be informed about the condition of a close person who is undergoing treatment, etc. In the end, we succeeded”, Santrač points out.
She adds that the launch of the free info line also meant the opening of one job in the hospital, which is an indication of the good cooperation of the Association with the Municipality and the city administration.
The Women’s Association Viktorija has also organized a series of lectures in recent years, especially in the field of disease prevention, such as breast cancer and cervical cancer. Specialists were invited to these lectures, who, at publicly organized gatherings, emphasized the importance of early examinations to the women from Pale in order to reduce the risk of these diseases and provide more effective treatment.
On the trail of health-oriented activities, the example of one of the members of the Association, Olivera Lopatić, who launched the Mama.com&ja online counseling center a year ago, is worth mentioning.
“That was the idea of starting the Association itself – so that women, working with us, understand what their interests are, which areas of social life touch them and where they see space for improvement. That’s how the Mama.com&ja online counseling center was launched, which we have been supporting since the first day,” says Santrač.
Danijela Mojević has been part of the Association since its foundation. Today, the employee of a private company also finds time for activism in the Association.
“The Association helped me understand that regardless of what I primarily did, there is always room for social engagement. Through work on projects, through our socializing, we support each other, we are here for a different perspective, and ultimately for a better environment,” says Mojević.
The story of the Association Viktorija shows not only that there are no small places where it is impossible to act. You just need to find a way, but also citizens should not wait for changes but advocate for them, just as members of the Association Viktorija do in Pale.
Author: Mladen Lakić
