Author: M. Hodzic
Youth Meeting of the Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2022
Problems and needs of young people were the focus of other Youth Meetings of the Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and key messages that peace and cooperation have no alternative. A large number of young people from the District, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region gathered in the organization of the Youth Council of the Brcko District of BiH in the period May 20 – 22. The organizers point out that the Youth Meeting in the city on the Sava River were organized in the spirit of unity and tolerance.
The youngest umbrella body of young people in the region, the Youth Council of the Brcko District of BiH, due to the unstable situation in Europe and the Balkans, sent messages of peace, coexistence and prosperity through the street performance “Echo of Peace”. Ten white pigeons were released into the sky, and symbolic messages of peace were sent with song and dance from Brčko’s Youth Square.
“We managed to make Brcko, at least this week, the regional youth capital,” said Vladimir Kanostrevac, president of the Brcko District Youth Council. He believes that the gathering attended by young people from the District, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region showed that this local community has a very high-quality umbrella organization of young people.
How the idea was born
Last year, the Youth Council of the Brčko District of BiH, which gathers 14 youth organizations, started the process of networking and connecting with other umbrella bodies of young people in the region. After the signing of the Memorandum at the end of last year in Belgrade, the formalized cooperation gave birth to the idea that the umbrella bodies of young people from the region send a symbolic message of unity and peace, referring to stability, given that the situation is not good.
“There were several suggestions for the host. Our idea was for it to be Brcko, because Brcko is a specific environment, a multiethnic community, and everything is even more important if it happens in Brcko”, states Kanostrevac.
The idea of young Brcko men and women gathered in the Youth Council was realized during other Youth Meetings of the Brčko District of BiH with the support of local authorities and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
There are difficulties in Brcko, but there is also room for young people to get involved. Other Youth Meetings showed the will and desire of young people to act, build their local community, contribute to creating conditions and environment in which the Brcko District of BiH will be recognized as a place of quality life and cooperation in our country and beyond.
Their wish is for the positive messages and images they send, such as those from the Youth Meeting, to reach as many young people as possible, for regional cooperation and meetings to be more massive and not just remain at the level of umbrella organizations, and to become traditional.
In order to create preconditions for the Brcko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina to build the image of a regional center of meetings and cooperation of young people in the future, it is necessary to strengthen the capacities of the umbrella body of young people.
“For now, everything is on a volunteer basis and most of the organizations of our members work as volunteers. It would be important to be recognized as an organization of public interest for our local community and that should be recognized by the government”, explains Vladimir Kanostrevac, President of the Youth Council of the Brcko District of BiH.
Volunteers in action
Among the volunteers engaged in other Youth Meetings was high school student Edna Corbadzic, a volunteer of the youth organization “Svitac” and a member of the local team Brcko “Association of High School Students in Bosnia and Herzegovina” (ASuBiH). She is convinced that through activism and volunteering she can contribute to positive changes in her city.
“I like to volunteer, I like to be that new force in the Brcko District, which can actually make a change in this city in a few years. The application for volunteering at this youth meeting came spontaneously, a friend sent me a link and it was logical that I would apply for something like this”.
Edna volunteers in the youth organization “Svitac” which works in the Brcko District of BiH with children and youth, organizes various educational activities such as courses and creative workshops for different ages. “Svitac” also provides an opportunity for young people from Brcko to volunteer in foreign countries, but also for volunteers from other countries to volunteer in the District.
Regarding the problems of her generation, the 15-year-old from Brcko says: “I honestly think that the biggest problem is that, in fact, many of my peers are not even aware of the opportunities and good things that volunteering and activism provide. Somehow everyone is limited in that view that our only activity is to study and have no other obligations.”
What, in her opinion, should be improved is to change the view of the older generations on youth. “Young people, in fact, can do a lot, although we may not be expected to do so much,” said Edna, who hopes better times will come.
Strategy – the key to systemic improvement of the position of young people
Brcko, like many other areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina, faces the challenge of young people leaving, regardless of the benefits and advantages they have in the District, such as benefits in self-employment or more favorable housing loans.
To illustrate, this year’s budget, and in many ways specific to the local community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, amounts to almost 240 million BAM. However, it was also noted that people who, colloquially speaking are on the budget, employed in the public sector are leaving, leaving their jobs, complete families are leaving, says Harun Sabanovic, chairman of the Youth Council of the Brcko District of BiH.
“Young people from Brcko are leaving in large numbers, not only because of their existence or poor economic status, they are leaving because of security, primarily political and fear of new conflicts. That is worrying,” explains Sabanovic. There are also positive examples, young people who started their own businesses, work in the real sector or have achieved in other places and positions. ” This encourages us, these are bright examples that it is possible to live here and achieve on a personal and professional level”, points out Sabanovic.
The draft of the first Youth Strategy of the Brčko District of BiH, the basic document for working with young people, has been sent to the parliamentary procedure. The strategy defines many youth issues. From employment, through housing policy, to health, activism, culture, sports. The District Assembly said that maximum efforts are being made to adopt the document as soon as possible.
The draft Strategy was also presented at the Meetings during which young people from our country and neighboring Serbia and Croatia also discussed the topic “Strategy – the key to systemic improvement of the position of young people.”
Employment, housing, education, health, especially mental health after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, are the most important socio-economic issues of young people in our country and in neighboring countries. Long-term problems with employment and housing independence put young people at risk of poverty and social exclusion. Due to poor employment and housing policies in our areas, young people become independent at the age of 33 on average.
Youth policies and strategic documents for strengthening the position of young people were the focus of the three-day Youth Meeting. The agreement on cooperation between the three umbrella bodies for youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Youth Council of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Youth Council of the Republika Srpska and the Youth Council of the Brcko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been renewed. The agreement envisages the exchange of knowledge and the realization of joint activities in the field of youth policies, youth organization and volunteering, and other activities of interest to associations and youth in our country.
Cooperation and strengthening of friendly connections
The Youth Council of the Brcko District of BiH fosters good regional cooperation with the entity and umbrella bodies for youth of neighboring countries. They say that they have to look beyond the local level, considering that they are a specific unit of local self-government.
“We have renewed and refreshed our Bihac agreement. From now on, when we talk about cooperation with the entity umbrella bodies, we will refer to the Brcko agreement. It is important to work on a regional level, to listen to what is happening and adopt examples of good practice from other environments, to send young people on study visits to get to know the environment in order to strengthen friendly connections. The main task of young people who come after us will be to nurture and strengthen cooperation with other youth umbrella bodies”, emphasizes Harun Sabanovic, Chairman of the Youth Council of the Brcko District of BiH.
Representatives of the Youth Network of Croatia and the Umbrella organization of youth of Serbia attended the youth meeting of the Brcko District of BiH 2022. At the meeting, they talked about the cooperation of umbrella organizations for youth, positive and negative practices of youth policies in the region and the European Union.
Ana Jokic, the program coordinator of KOMS, reminded that the representative bodies of young people from the region have been cooperating since last year. Peace, always an important topic, especially now due to the conflict in Ukraine was recognized at joint meetings of regional representative bodies of youth. “It is crucial that the highest representative bodies of young people have the desire to independently organize, meet, work and see a common perspective, which shows that they can function outside the imposed political frameworks and narratives, given that tensions often arise from political speeches.”, added Jokic.
The peace aspect of the Youth Meeting is extremely important. In this way, it is shown that young people do not live from the past. They are looking to the future and seeing the European perspective. It shows how important joint action is,” said Kristijan Oreskovic, project and program manager at the Croatian Youth Network.
The Youth meeting of the Brcko District 2022 was an opportunity to exchange ideas and strengthen cooperation and friendly cooperation, networking. Young people in the District have shown a willingness to act, waiting for the adoption of the Youth Strategy, in the process of which they were actively involved. They are ready to develop and implement the Strategy and Action Plans for Youth, documents that will help strengthen their capacities and position, documents that are one of the institutional systemic responses of the Brcko District of BiH to the emigration of young people.
