“Engaging Communities” was the main theme of this year’s Workshop on Voluntary Action, organized in Sarajevo from 8th to 11th October, by Volonteurope, leading European Voluntary service. This was 18th annual Workshop and Conference, first to be organized outside of the European Union. Thanks to OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who was Volonteurope’s partner in the project, Conference hosted some very prominent guests, NGO activists, educators, politicians, EU officials and diplomats. Opening Ceremony of the Conference was organized at the British Ambassador’s Residence in Sarajevo.  

What followed in next few days were series of interesting and particularly educative workshops and presentations by different activists, volunteers and educators from Germany, Great Britain, France, Netherlands, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina and many other countries, who shared their experience with the participants. Around 300 participants had an opportunity to hear about some of the crucial challenges of the voluntary networks in EU and BiH, methods used to overcome problems, fund raising strategies, etc. Workshops were enriched by volunteers presenting their first hand experiences and were interactive, open to discussions that followed.

The United World College in Mostar was invited to the Conference to present its community service programme CAS- Creativity, Action, Service with a special focus on its Service component. The title of our presentation was “The effects of a structured voluntary service programme on the local community and the participants”. Beside emphasizing the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme as one of the useful tools for encouraging youngsters to become volunteers, the presentation also underlined the importance of voluntary engagement inside UWC movement. The main part of our presentations was concentrated on the role that UWCiM plays in post-conflict reconciliation in Mostar by establishing cooperation with local NGOs and institutions such as Centre with people with special needs “Los Rosales”, Association of Mostar Roma “Neretva”, Caritas’ Centre for children with special needs “Holy Family”, etc. This was presented by our students Srđan Beronja and Maria Cid Chuchino who shared their experiences from their service groups, and they also informed the present about the independent students’ initiatives  such us organizing Model United Nations Conference, Roma Awareness Week, etc. Large interest of other participants for the activities of UWCiM will most definitely lead to some new collaborative projects started around the BiH and wider area.

On a local level conference encouraged closer collaboration of BiH NGO’s, Youth councils, Voluntary services and similar organizations who work on a more intensive engagement of civil society in decision making processes. Overall impression is that the Conference was very successful and encouraging. It helped integrating BiH into the European voluntary network and invited all the local organizations to participate in the next Volonteurope Conference 2010 in Athens as well as to prepare for the upcoming 2011 which will be celebrated as the European Year of Voluntarism.

Dženan Hakalović, UWCIM History Teacher, BiH