DONOR: US Embassy Bosnia and Herzegovina
DURATION: 1. November 2014 – 1. March 2015.
LOCATION: Middle Bosnia Canton (16 divided and segregated schools)
Project summary
The project targets ethnically divided schools in Middle Bosnia canton. In those “two schools under one roof”, children are segregated based on ethnicity, they are learning in different classrooms and being taught by different teachers according to divided, ethnically defined curricula. The project contributes to overcoming ethnic segregation by working with pupils and their teachers. In workshops that bring different ethnic groups together, the participants have a chance to build relationships and to discuss issues such as peaceful conflict resolution and prevention, diversity and intercultural understanding, children’s rights and social inclusion, and communication skills. Just before the end of the project and after project official completion, educated children / direct workshops participants will continue to educate their class mates by conducting educational classes during the hours of class community. This activity will enable sustainability of initiated activities.
Project goal and objectives
This project aims at creating safe school environments in 16 targeted schools / 8 divided and segregated schools through educational and pedagogical work in class communities. This project also aims to point out the danger of ethnic distrust and animosity, further conflicts and a conspiracy of silence. Our project aims at countering this silence with opening up spaces for communication and cooperation.
In order to achieve these objectives, the following activities will be supported :
Activity 1. “Evaluation of the workshops impact”:
Before we start conducting the workshops with future peer-educators we will conduct evaluation activity / pre-test the level of their knowledge on project selected topics and we will determine the level of prejudices and stereotypes that exist among project direct beneficiaries. After we conduct peer-education workshops with children, we will conduct post-testing activity in order to measure the changes.
Activity 2. “Workshops with children” (64 workshops):
This activity educates pupils (176 children educated directly through participation in joint peer-education workshops about the core topics of the project (peaceful conflict resolution and peaceful conflict prevention; promotion of diversity and intercultural understanding; respect of children rights and social inclusion; development of communication skills; etc.).
Activity 3. “Peer-education classes” (16 classes):
Through this activity, educated peer-educators will transfer knowledge gained on the workshops to their class mates. They will be assisted by Genesis Project workshops facilitators.
Project outreach and sustainability:
Project outreach activities will have a huge effect considering the fact that we will target over 500 direct beneficiaries from deeply divided municipalities. Ministry of Education of the SBC Canton, the media and thereby the general public, will be informed about the positive activities that will be implemented in the deeply divided communities. Project activities will be a great upgrade to the previous projects which Genesis has implemented in the past four years in these deeply divided communities of the SBC Canton. Given that the young adolescent will be educated about children’s rights and social inclusion, diversity and intercultural understanding, peaceful conflict resolution and prevention we believe that new knowledge will also influence change in their attitudes and behavior. In this way, our actions will set a good and solid foundation for future practice and work towards creating a positive environment for future action.
