Symbolically on the International Volunteer Day, this year’s “Youth Inspiration Academy”, organized by the Tuzla Community Foundation for young people from the Tuzla Canton, was closed with the award ceremony “Hero/Heroine of Your Community 2021”. This year, in the period from December 1 – 5 in the premises of the Center for Culture Tuzla, young people had the opportunity to participate in educational workshops aimed at their personal development, social and entrepreneurial engagement.
As the name of the conference says, the goal was to gather young people from Tuzla Canton and inspire them to stronger personal and social engagement and create an environment in which young people want to stay and develop. Mirza Mujezinović, coordinator of the Youth Bank program at the Tuzla Community Foundation, thinks that it is very challenging: “Young people are a resource and I am not afraid of smart young people, they will be successful. I am afraid they will be successful somewhere else, in the environment that gives them more opportunities to develop even more. Therefore, with these and similar activities we organize, we want to give young people the opportunity to further improve their knowledge, so that in addition to knowledge acquired through formal education, they are more aware of their role in society, but also their opportunities and needs in the labor market.
The conference ended with the award ceremony of the Community Hero/Heroine of 2021. The award is traditionally given to individuals, associations and companies who through their volunteer engagement in the past period have made an outstanding contribution to youth development. This year’s winners, according to the following categories, were:
- Youth Association “Trik” Kalesija, for outstanding contribution to the development and empowerment of young people in the Kalesija Municipality;
- Asja Dizdarević, for outstanding contribution to the development of youth and youth sector;
- Merima Dževdetbegović, for outstanding contribution to the development of children and youth in the social protection system;
- Citizens’ Association “Kaskader produkcija”, for the best implemented project in 2021;
- Amila Spahić, for exceptional volunteer engagement in the work of the Youth Bank in 2021.
Merima Osmanović, president of the Youth Association Trik from Kalesija, believes that this award is extremely important for all children and youth in this community: “This recognition is a big wind in our backs. In small communities where children and young people have fewer opportunities, it is a great responsibility to motivate them to provide opportunities they do not have and that is why this award is proof to all young people in Kalesija that everyone notices everything they are doing as volunteers.”
The conference “Youth Inspiration Academy” is organized within the project “Democratic and economic empowerment of underdeveloped communities in Tuzla Canton”, which is implemented by the Tuzla Community Foundation with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
