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Author: WeBalkans

EU launches campaign to encourage higher voter turnout in the upcoming BiH elections

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The European Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina launched a campaign entitled “Everything starts with a choice” aiming to encourage and motivate the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to exercise their democratic rights by voting in the upcoming elections in October.

 

The campaign opened with street actions under the slogan “Choosing is Easy” at the BBI Centre in Sarajevo,  Petar Kočić Park in Banja Luka and at the Mepas Mall in Mostar. Passers-by in all three cities were invited to enter a prize draw by stepping into a voting booth and making a simple choice, for example between fashion items, travel destinations in BiH or up-and-coming musicians. By emphasising how easy it is to vote for a simple prize, the action aimed to underline the value of voting for something much more valuable – a stake in the country’s future.

 

The campaign will also feature testimonials on the importance of going out to vote. These will come from prominent BiH citizens such as basketball star Jusuf Nurkić, and will run alongside other actions designed to raise public engagement and awareness about the value of exercising one’s democratic rights.

 

The campaign will run until the elections which are due in October.

Bosnia and Herzegovina joins EU Civil Protection Mechanism

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On 6 September Bosnia and Herzegovina became a full member of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism –the European solidarity framework that helps countries when they are overwhelmed by a disaster. The Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, came to Sarajevo to sign the membership agreement on behalf of the European Union.

 

Bosnia and Herzegovina was already benefiting from the EU Civil Protection Mechanism as a receiving country, but now by being a full member they will also be able to actively dispatch assistance via the Mechanism wherever it is needed. 

 

The EU Civil Protection Mechanism aims to strengthen cooperation between the 27 EU countries and seven participating States (Iceland, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Turkey, and now Bosnia and Herzegovina) on civil protection to improve prevention, preparedness, and response to disasters. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s membership of the Mechanism will enhance Europe’s regional emergency preparedness and rescue capacity.

Solar power brightens the future for a Bosnian company

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A large solar power plants to supply a company’s own needs has been installed with EU support by a food company from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Madi, based in Tešanj, is one of the few companies authorised to export fresh chicken meat to the European Union. The company was founded in 1989 and in 2000 they launched their first chicken meat processing facility. By 2015 they had introduced the largest and most modern poultry slaughterhouse in the region with a capacity of 6,000 broilers per hour and 24 million birds per year. Today they are recognised as the market leader in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on Madi, despite it being one of the most successful companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company suffered supply problems and had to review their spending and save where possible. To combat the problem the management decided to form a task force to optimise expenditure.

“We were always aware that electricity was one of our biggest costs. One of the first things we analysed was how to reduce energy costs. After detailed research we came to the conclusion that installing a solar power plant would be one of the best solutions.”

Mirel Dedukić was assigned as the head of this task force. He explains that one of the main items of expenditure that they noticed was electricity. “We were always aware that electricity was one of our biggest costs. One of the first things we analysed was how to reduce energy costs.”

He knew that Madi’s highest electricity need was during the summer where solar panels would be at maximum production capacity. “After detailed research we came to the conclusion that installing a solar power plant would be one of the best solutions”, he explains. The company then embarked on an investment that is unique in BiH.

While Madi was working on their own feasibility study for investing in the solar panel power plant, the EU-funded EU4AGRI programme launched a call for proposals. The call included meat industry companies. “We had our project almost ready and it was easy for us to apply to the call,” says Mirel.

With co-financing from EU4AGRI, Madi installed a solar power plant with a capacity of 1,000 kW. The power plant was installed in three production halls taking up 5500 m2. Total annual production capacity is 1,147 MWh, which covers 15% of the company’s electricity consumption. In addition, in 2021 they installed another solar power plant with a capacity of 1,000 kW, so now over 30% of their electricity comes from renewable sources.

“We are very proud that we have contributed to the preservation of the environment with this project. On top of that, we have reduced our costs and reached self-sustainability in the supply of electricity.”

About the project

The EU4AGRI project is a four-year initiative (2020-2024) aimed at modernising the agri-food sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina, creating new jobs, as well as retaining existing ones, and supporting recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. The total value of the project is €20.25 million, mainly funded by the European Union, but jointly implemented and co-financed by the Czech Development Agency and the United Nations Development Programme in BiH.

The EU4AGRI project has so far supported BiH farmers and enterprises with 45 investments worth nearly €5.5 million, of which over €3.2 million was financed by the European Union.

According to Mirel, the energy produced by their solar power plant represents a reduction of slightly more than 1,800,000 kg of CO2 pollution, the equivalent of saving 600,000 litres of diesel or 800 tons of coal. “We are very proud that we have contributed to the preservation of the environment with this project. On top of that, we have reduced our costs and reached self-sustainability in the supply of electricity,”says Mirel.

The plan for the future is for Madi to remain the largest company in the meat industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina, through a continuous investment in human resources and modern technology. In addition, they have a launched a new company “Mipower d.o.o.”, which will focus full-time on the production and trade of electrical energy. They plan to install at least another 10MW of solar panels.

Creating the next generation of volunteers

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An EU-funded project in Kosovo is supporting the uptake of volunteerism in schools.

Rina Recica is 14 years old and one of the brightest students in her year group at school. Apart from her studies, she is also very much concerned with social issues and problems such as environmental protection and human rights. Over the past years, her and her friends have contributed regularly through volunteer activities in her school. “We organised a school yard cleaning initiative regularly and produced posters against bullying. But I somehow always had the feeling that we were not doing enough and that we could do more,” Rina explains.

This changed when a non-governmental organisation called TOKA approached the school offered to organise Service-Learning Clubs (volunteering clubs) with the help of two of their teachers. “This helped a lot,” says Rina, “as now we have more regular and well-coordinated activities and we also got to know other people at school who were doing volunteer activities whom we didn’t know before”.

“The reason for initiating this programme was fairly simple. We aimed to make young people more active in matters concerning the community and to contribute to their informal education at the same time.”

The service-learning programme started in Kosovo five years ago and in the last three years has been implemented with the support of the European Union. In a nutshell, the programme is about helping young people get more involved in volunteerism while also acquiring new knowledge, values, and skills; such as critical thinking, communication, problem solving, social skills, decision-making, leadership, and enhanced self-efficacy and awareness for active citizenship.

Hatixhe Zeka, who is the manager of the programme, explains that many countries have volunteerism included in their formal education system through service-learning programmes. However, Kosovo is among those that do not have volunteerism as part of their formal education. “The reason for initiating this programme was fairly simple. We aimed to make young people more active in matters concerning the community and to contribute to their informal education at the same time,” says Hatixhe.

In the beginning, the programme started with a call for participation open to all school teachers across Kosovo,followed by six days of training for the selected candidates on how to coordinate and initiate volunteer activities in school. Afterwards, the trained teachers returned to their schools and started organising volunteer clubs with their students. The activities continued with weekly meetings where teachers and students started talking about concrete volunteerism actions. In these meetings, the teachers trialled used certain training techniques so the club members are better prepared for volunteering activities.

The first module was about reflection on participants’ own skills and capacities,  the second introduced the cycle of preparation for volunteer action, including analysis of the needs of the community and on how to develop problem-tackling  ideas, and the  third   reflected on the successes and gaps of the project. The volunteer clubs in each of the selected schools met up regularly over several months, and in addition to teaching new skills, each of the clubs also implemented at least one volunteer project by the end of the programme. Each project was also financially supported via  a symbolic  contribution where it was necessary.

“It was really inspiring to see the effort and the passion that teachers and students alike gave to their volunteer projects – and there is even greater interest for the new clubs that we will start to initiate soon.”

About the project

TOKA has been implementing the Service-Learning programme since 2017. In this programme, TOKA has included 2,500 young people aged 12-17 from more than 80 schools in 20 municipalities of Kosovo. These young people are part of the service-learning volunteers’ clubs which are supported by TOKA. The clubs are led by teachers or civil society members over the age of 18, who were trained in the experiential learning methodology which integrates learning through experience. This programme also exposes youth to concrete experiences by implementing service-learning projects, making catalogues of the needs of their community, solving or reducing the problems of their community, setting goals and objectives, managing project activities, raising funds, drafting budgets, and monitoring and evaluating projects. Since 2019, the project has been supported by the European Union Office in Kosovo, through the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights EIDHR.

In five years, the project managed to initiate 29 service-learning clubs in 15 municipalities across Kosovo, engaging 60 service-learning club leaders with more than 500 volunteer members joining the clubs. During the school year 60 service-learning projects were implemented in different communities all over Kosovo.  As a result, over 50,000 vulnerable people have been supported in direct or indirect ways through projects implemented as part of volunteer clubs. “It was really inspiring to see the effort and the passion that teachers and students alike gave to their volunteer projects, and there even greater interest for the new clubs that we will start to initiate soon,” says Hatixhe.

The programme also involved students from the Faculty of Education and Department of Psychology from the University of Prishtina who are to become future teachers and psychologists. They also benefited from the informal teaching techniques provided as part of the clubs. According to Hatixhe, the overall impact of the project was three-fold: teachers learned new teaching methodologies that have  proven  both efficient and practical, and they  also these benefits to their regular classes;  club members gained higher self-confidence in coordination, analytical and soft skills; and  students in the Faculty of Education and Department of Psychology  gained  valuable experience in facilitating experiential learning activities, such as managing youth, club and project implementation in theircommunities.

Hatixhe further explains that the EU support for this programme was crucial, and not only from the financial viewpoint. “The EU support increased the credibility and importance of the programme among stakeholders at the municipal andcentral levels, and it gave another important push for the last three years,” she says.

Taking parenting to the next level

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EU and Unicef join forces in supporting Montenegro develop an effective early childhood development programme improving the wellbeing of children and supporting caregivers.

Mišo Obradović is a father of two, and a well-known actor in Montenegro. He likes spending his free time with his four-year-old daughter and one-year-old son. However, despite his ambition to be a perfect parent, he had communication issues with his daughter. “My daughter stayed at the table for a long time during lunch, which is a problem many parents face, but I didn’t know the best way to solve it,” says Mišo

 

He admits that he tried to resolve this challenge on his own in various ways – from bribing his daughter with sweets to threatening her with punishment. However, he realised that this approach was not yielding the intended results. “Sometimes, I would lose patience. Other times, I would have too much patience, and in those cases the meals would last forever,” he says.

 

“I decided to apply for the Caring Families programme not only because of this particular problem but also because of the general desire to be a better parent to my children,” he explains. Using principles from the programme, together with expert advice and conversations with other fathers who participated in the programme, Mišo learned how to motivate his daughter to finish her meal using positive incentives. “She accepted this new situation calmly and I decided to keep my composure, so we are no longer frustrated with lingering around at the table for an hour and a half after lunchtime.”

“Parenting programmes not only help with reducing harsh discipline, but also provide support to children on how to be non-violent as well. Parents are a model for children’s behaviour, so raising children in non-violent families may contribute to non-violent communities.”

Caring Families is a parenting programme that supports parents to establish and sustain nurturing relationships with their children. The programme is financed directly by the EU in Montenegro as part of the Early Childhood Development project implemented by Unicef. Ida Ferdinandi is Unicef’s Early Childhood Development officer in Montenegro and she explains that parenting programmes have been recognised globally as one of the key strategies to prevent violence against children. “In fact, Parenting programmes not only help with reducing harsh discipline, but also provide support to children on how to be non-violent as well. Parents are a model for children’s behaviour, so raising children in non-violent families may contribute to non-violent communities.”

Ida explains that there are several evidence-based programmes such as this one around the world, but that these programmes are generally hard to access because of a license fee that is very expensive. The World Health Organisation, as well as experts from various universities and Unicef, therefore developed this particular programme (Parenting for Lifelong Health, called Caring Families in Montenegro) as a licensed, evidence-based but open source programme for low- and middle-income countries such as Montenegro.

In Montenegro, the programme has been implemented for over five years. With two cycles per year, the programme has reached more than 800 parents in seven municipalities.  700 of the parents have successfully completed the programme. A study that measured the impact of the programme among the participants shows that there was a more than 70% reduction in violent parenting, a 30% reduction in child behaviour problems and 45% reduction in parental depression. “The impact of the project is fantastic,” says Ida.

An online version of the Caring Families Programme called ParentChat was piloted during COVID-19 in an effort to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on children and families in the Western Balkans and Turkey.

“We are trying to build a human resource capacity for the programme to develop sustainably, and we are also working with the Ministry of Health on a national early childhood development strategy so the programme is integrated into government policy and action as regular service provision.”

About the project

The early childhood development initiative in Montenegro is a three-year programme that will last until July 2023. It is funded by the European Union with €1 million and  implemented by Unicef, in cooperation with the Ministries of Health, Education, and Labour and Social Welfare. Thanks to the initiative, the EU and Unicef will help the Montenegrin authorities to develop and implement a national strategy on early childhood development, thereby also raising the overall awareness of the importance of early child development. The capacities of health, protection and education services to deliver appropriate services to families and young children, including children with disabilities, will be increased. Parents and caregivers will also have the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and skills via the programme, making it easier for them to provide their children with positive, responsive and nurturing care.

The Caring Families programme in Montenegro is being delivered by primary health care centres who have counselling units, as well as by kindergartens and several civil society organisations and primary schools. Unicef is also working on scaling up the programme to ensure its sustainability. The programme is providing training for new local facilitators with the aim of building a pool of national trainers, so that it doesn’t have to rely solely on international experts to deliver the programme. “We are trying to build a human resource capacity for the programme to develop sustainably, and we are also working with the Ministry of Health on a national early childhood development strategy so the programme is integrated into government policy and action as regular service provision,” says Ida.

Mišo says that the model of parenting has changed from when he was a child, and that fathers want to be more involved in raising their children. “I want to be a father who is close to his children during the critical periods of their lives; to be a support to them, and provide guidance for the decisions that await them in life,” he says.

EU support for the 16th Guitar Art Summer Fest in Montenegro

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One of the best acoustic guitarists in the world, Tommy Emmanuel, together with the best guitarist in the Balkans, Vlatko Stefanovski, opened the 16th Guitar Art Summer Fest this month at Kanli Kula in Herceg Novi. Tommy Emmanuel did not hide his delight at performing on the beautiful Kanli Kula stage, emphasising how happy he was to be performing outdoors again after a long break due to the coronavirus pandemic. Stefanovski, who was performing at the festival for the second time, said that he adored Herceg Novi.

 

As part of the festival, seven free concerts were organised at the Music Square in the Old Town of Herceg Novi, as well as an exhibition on Guitar Visual Art in the Sue Ryder gallery on Belavista. The European Union in Montenegro supported the five-day guitar spectacle with other sponsors, such as the Ministry of Culture and Media, the Municipality of Herceg Novi, and the School for Basic Music Education.

Klara Šovagović and Josip Lukić win Heart of Sarajevo award for best student film

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Young Croatian directors Klara Šovagović and Josip Lukić have won the Heart of Sarajevo award for Best Student Film at the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival with their movie It’s Not Cold for Mosquitoes. The award, whose patron is the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), was presented at the festival’s closing ceremony.

 

The Heart of Sarajevo for the Best Student Film, championed by the RCC, aims to promote films made by students from regional film schools, faculties and art academies. With this section of the competition programme, the Sarajevo Film Festival provides a new platform for the training of talented film professionals at the very beginning of their careers. The focus is on feature films, documentaries and animated films up to 60 minutes that were created within the teaching process of regional film schools.

   

The RCC has sponsored the Sarajevo Film Festival’s Heart of Sarajevo award for the Best Student Film since its introduction in 2017. Previous laureates of the award are: Alexandru Mironescu (Romania) for Summer Planning in 2021; Zeynep Dilan Süren (Turkey) for The Great Istanbul Depression in 2020; Nikola Stojanović, (Serbia) for Sherbet in 2019; Hajni Kis (Hungary) for Last call in 2018l; and Neven Samardžić (Bosnia and Herzegovina) for Clean in 2017.

Young European Ambassadors attend the Sarajevo Film festival

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In August, Sarajevo was the centre of the region on the occasion of the 28th edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. This year, for the first time, Young European Ambassadors (YEAs) also attended the event as part of the Human Rights Day programme.

 

The programme was attended by 11 YEAs along with volunteers from the Institute for Youth Development, KULT, from Bosnia and Herzegovina. They watched special selections of films, and attended lectures and workshops led by experts in the fields of human rights and engaged art, and took part in panels with participants of the youth programme on “Dealing with the Past.”

 

During these five days, YEAs had the opportunity to watch movies by respected filmmakers like Ari Folman and Joseph Pierson, to listen to the stories and experiences of the most famous Bosnian war reporter, Aida Čerkez, and the leader of the NGO Forgotten Children of War, Ajna Jusić.  They also to spoke with EU Ambassador, Johann Sattler, and the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Jan Waltmans. The programme used a combination of art – primarily film – and academic and activist work to ask the question: to whom do human rights belong today?

Boosting farming in Montenegro

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EU funds create new jobs and better quality products.

Milenko Nedić (47) used to be in the army. In 2005, as part of government reforms, he was declared redundant along with 3,000 other colleagues, and overnight he was jobless. When he had to decide what to do next, he remembered his parents’ background in farming – the only other work he knew about.

Milenko and his wife took out a bank loan and bought the three cows that started their small farm. The beginning was difficult because of the loans’ high interest rates and the couple’s lack of overall financial capacity. Then an opportunity emerged for Milenko and his wife to expand and stabilise their business with support from the EU’s instrument for pre-accession assistance for rural development (IPARD II). “Through IPARD programmes, I have managed to complete the farm’s mechanisation and obtain milking systems, as well as all other equipment I need for the farm. In the last call I received support of about €48,000, which I put together with my own contribution of €32,000,” says Milenko. He now has about 50 cows and one of the biggest farms in the Piva region in Montenegro.

“Before the start of the implementation of the IPARD II programme, we only had two or three processing plants that met the national standards for food safety. We now have over 21 facilities that meet the standards. This fact in itself shows the positive impact that IPARD II has had in Montenegro.”

Safer food

Milenko is not the only IPARD II success story in Montenegro. So far, at least 254 farmers have used IPARD II funds, and have benefited from improvements in working conditions on farms. Gordana Dujović from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management explains that, “before the start of the implementation of the IPARD II programme, we had only two or three processing plants that met the national standards for food safety. We now have over 21 facilities that meet the standards. This fact in itself shows the positive impact that IPARD II has had in Montenegro”. According to Gordana, over 100 new jobs have been created through the IPARD II support so far, and these have mainly gone to young people.

Montenegro is currently using the funds available from the IPARD II programme, which can be used until the end of 2023, and the EU has recently adopted the IPARD III programme for Montenegro for the period 2021-2027. Gordana is confident that IPARD III will be even more successful than the previous programmes. “We are starting IPARD III with much more experience and knowledge gained through the previous implementation of calls of the IPARD II programme. We, as well as the recipients, are much more experienced, and I believe that the benefits will increase significantly. Accreditation of new measures is also planned, so it will open up possibilities for recipients to receive more support, and for Montenegro as a country to withdraw more of the EU funds available to it,” she says.

“The farm provides us with a good life. It requires a lot of work, and most of the money earned needs to be reinvested in production again, but the farm is growing.”

About the programme

Part of the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) designed to support reforms in countries in the process of joining the EU, the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance for Rural Development (IPARD) focuses on the agri-food sectors of those countries and rural areas. Through this tool, the EU provides beneficiaries with financial and technical help to make their agricultural sector and rural areas more sustainable, aligning them with the EU’s common agricultural policy.

Milenko is convinced that without IPARD projects nine out of ten farmers would have to give up agriculture. According to him, not enough members of the labour force are willing to engage in farming, so the mechanisation procured through IPARD calls is an important contribution. “The farm provides us with a good life. It requires a lot of work, and most of the money earned needs to be reinvested in production again, but the farm is growing,” says Milenko.

Scout camp open for adventures in North Macedonia

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An EU-funded project supports improvement of facilities and services at a scout camp in Struga.

Krste-Jon Scout Camp van be found in a great location: close to the woods as well as the beach along Lake Ohrid.It is  also near the city centre of  Struga. The scout camp opened in the 1970s with very basic infrastructure, and the first additional investments in the camp weren’t made until 2003, when the municipality funded construction of the first concrete building containing eight rooms.

“We had major infrastructure-related problems: we didn’t have toilets, hot water, or lighting.”

Marjan Glavinceski is the head of the Krste-Jon Struga civil society organisation that manages the camp. He explains that despite the beautiful environment where the camp is located, it was not really attractive to visitors. “We had major infrastructure-related problems: we didn’t have toilets, hot water, or lighting.”

Luckily, possibilities opened up for this scout camp three years ago when the camp management decided to look for support to improve its conditions. They looked  found it from the European Union, and together they turned the camp into one of the most attractive sites in the Western Balkans.

The EU-funded Local and Regional Competitiveness Project supported the camp to improve its physical infrastructure as well as to launch new attractions for visitors. To date, the camp has built seven stilted chalets, extended the existing building and improved the infrastructure of the tent pitches. As a result, the camp can now accommodate up to 200 visitors at a time, providing them with proper toilets and hot water.

The project also launched new adventure tourism services, including  scuba diving, bicycle and hiking tours, and kayaking. The project helped purchase equipment for these attractions and supported the training of the instructors. “Now we are able to keep our visitors busy throughout their stay: if they stay for five days, they have a different thing to do each day. The scuba diving in Ohrid lake is currently the most sought-after attraction among visitors,” says Marjan.

“The EU support was crucial. We are a small organisation working locally, and had no potential for growth without this support.”

About the project

The Local and Regional Competitiveness Project (LRCP) is a four-year investment operation financed with a grant from the European Union (Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance – IPA II). The project offers a holistic approach to tourism development and destination management and will provide investment funding and capacity building to support sector growth, investment in destinations, and specific destination prosperity. The LRCP objective is to enhance the contribution of tourism to local economic development and improve the capacity of the government and public entities to foster tourism growth and facilitate destination management.

Marjan explains that as a result of the project the number of visitors has increased considerably, and last year the number of visitors from abroad was higher than those from North Macedonia. “The EU support was crucial. We are a small organisation working locally, and had no potential for growth without this support,” says Marjan.

The campsite invested last year’s profit in further improvement of infrastructure and they have plans to introduce new attractions such asparagliding in the future. “We want to develop further and become an important player in the adventure tourism market in the Western Balkans,” says Marjan.