Syndicate: [Balkansunflower-list] Financial Year Report, Activity report Peja/Pec and Activities in Serbia/Montenegro

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi@mail.inet.it>]

From: "wam" <wam@mir.org>
To: "BSF general big Mailing List (E-mail)" <balkansunflower-list@ddh.nl>
Subject: [Balkansunflower-list] Financial Year Report, Activity report
Peja/Pec and Activities in Serbia/Montenegro
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 19:35:50 +0200
Sender: owner-balkansunflower-list@ddh.nl
Reply-To: balkansunflowers@bsfnet.org

BALKAN SUNFLOWERS NEWS UPDATE
International Volunteers for Social Reconstruction in the Balkans
More Information: http://www.balkansunflowers.org
Email: balkansunflowers@bsfnet.org
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Financial Year Report

Finally we have finished the financial year report April 1999-May 2000, it
is a bit long to send via a mailing list, so everybody who is interested to
receive it should send an email message to balkansunflowers@bsfnet.org and
ask for a electronic copy.

Peja (Kosovo)

In Spring former UCK fighters helped children plant flowers and vegetables
in Peja's Peace Garden on land provided by a primary school; this project
evolve into a center of activities and then part of Peace Camp Peje (more
below).
Activities there included preparing the field for planting, watering the
garden, and art:  the signs painted by the children with names and pictures of
vegetables and flowers indicate what has been planted where.  A flower shop
in the center of Peje was brightened up for a one-week plant sale; children
showed plants grown in the garden and made some pocket money.  Integrating
different levels of local community (school children including children
from ethnic minorities and local workers, many of them former fighters) is
an important goal behind a simple activity.

Art and environmental awareness are the basis for several successful BSF
activities in Peje, besides the basic work in transit centers like the Konvikt
(started already last summer), Blind School and children's hospital.
Although the Arts Center activities are temporarily suspended because the
theatre is being renovated, other projects are in full blossom.

The Parks renovation is finished now.  Three city parks were renovated with
extensive clearing of brush and trimming, garbage collection, new playground,
tables and benches. The real success story is the opening of the parks to
the city, for the full range of activities.  From summer 1999 clean-ups,
sports and games to Summer 2000 Peace Camp Peje, BSF brought thousands of
children in  myriad activities into Karagac Park: Rights of the Children
Day, Earth Day, Peace Camp Festival, and many free outdoor films were held
in the park in past months.  Great clean-ups of the Center Park have helped
bring environmental awareness to the center of Peje as well.

The Urban Environment Awareness Campaign birthed a video program to produce
environmental films with teenagers.  This is developing into a youth video
cente in the middle of Peje.  A room to host the project was provided by IRC,
connected to the Peje Youth Center.  The program directed by talented local
manager, Nick Tahirbegolli, has brought a succession of people of
outstanding talent to help: Sally Thompson, a BBC Television Director and
Jan Kellett, who has also worked at the BBC and studied filmmaking have
brought great skill to our volunteer efforts.

In August, BSF brought Mark Landsman, award winning children's filmmaker to
Peje for a month long program, producing two childre's films: Heart Poem, by
the 11-14 year-olds, and Postcards by the 15-20 year-olds.  Peje Teens, the
video group is now developing three Public Service Announcements, short
films on
important social concerns.

Many of these activities came together in a seven-week summer day camp.
Using our mix of arts, play, music, garden, and environmental projects this
summer camp focused on two themes: Nonviolence and Weapons Awareness (based
on our outstanding winter program in Albania), and Multi-Cultural
Understanding
and Tolerance.  Collaborating with a Czech organization we visited villages,
bringing along city children to share programs with them, exploring the
meaning of different cultures.  Children made masks and costumes, learned
songs and dance, and most importantly became comfortable with each other in
a
multi-ethnic environment.

Photography has been included in programs during recent months; now a major
workshop is under way involving children from Albanian and Roma families in
a collaborative effort.

Balkan Sunflowers has been a leader in Peje in environmental education for
children.  In recent days it is being looked at to provide leadership in
tolerance education, based on our summer camp experience and the kinds of
programs we have been leading in Peje since last year.  The photography
program is an important contribution to this month's Youth Week (1-7
October), as is a mural to be painted in the center of Peje, a
collaboration of Albanian
and Roma youth.  The city asked us to develop a Tolerance Curriculum that
we expect will get its first field trials during Youth Week.


Yugoslavia

Due to the political instable situation in the last month in Yugoslavia
(Serbia and Montenegro) the projects there (in cooperation with SCI
International and Peace Center of Praha) are put on ice. We hope that in
the next weeks the situation will normalize and that we can consider
re-opening.

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More information see our website or contact us on our email address:
balkansunflowers@bsfnet.org

DONATIONS:

How to Transfer Money to the Balkan Sunflower Account
accountnr. 0004075781 on the of Balkan Sunflowers e.V.- Belzig
on the Raiffeisenbank Mittelmark e.G. - Belzig, Germany
Bankleitzahl (not international swift code) 16062048
International Swiftcode:GENODEF 1BZG

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