Sunflower Seeds BALKAN SUNFLOWERS Volume 2, Issue 1 March 2004 Scouting for Change... 6-month training program Balkan Sunflowers training program, "Scouting for Change", began with a seminar at the Vushtrri Police School from 16 th to 18 th January. The training program, which is to last six months, aims to help the leaders from the different scout groups of Kosovo to improve activities, exchange experiences, gain new leadership skills, and deep-en their knowledge and their practice of scouting. Thomas Bevand leads the program. Tom is a French scout with more than 15 years experience; he joined BSF in September, after two previous visits to Kosovo with the Scouts de France. The seminar gathered 50 Albanian, Serbian, and Roma youth leaders from Cernica, Ferizaj/ Urosevac, Gjakovë/ Djakovica, Lipjan/ Lipljan, Obiliq/c, Plemetinë/ Plemetina, Podujevë/ Podujevo, Prishtinë/ Pristina, and Prizren. Through different kinds of workshops, the participants had the opportunity to express their expectations of the seminar and the Scouting for Change program, to think about the situation of scouting in Kosovo, and to discover how they could contribute to improve it. They expressed their will to establish contacts with foreign scout groups, their desire to take part in international events, to participate in additional training sessions, to conduct multiethnic activities, and to seek for more equipment and supplies. During the Saturday evening program, everybody participated in improvised songs and dances, which contributed to the energetic and friendly atmosphere. This seminar was not only a chance for the leaders to gain skills and learn about scouting, but it was also the opportunity to meet new friends and get in touch with leaders from other groups with whom to organize common activities in the future. Each month a new weekend workshop will bring 20-25 young people together to focus on a training topic, such as Leading Children s Activities, Communication Skills, and Planning a Camp. They will then help conduct programs on the same topic in their region. Finally, they will design and conduct programs for the children in their regions. Thus learning by doing will be the practice at each stage of the project. Older leaders will also take part in a series of workshops designed to help build their groups and programs. The project is supported by the Swiss Liaison Office Kosovo. The scouting project is also supported by Caritas Italiana, the European Scout Office, and Scouts de France. When I came in Kosovo, I came for an interesting professional experience; I got that, but I received so much more than that, but what I would like to point out is that I left as an idealist, a person who had received the necessary motivational stimulus to shape an entire life around development; one who s willing to pay the price, if, I find the approach to development responsible such as that of Balkan Sunflowers. Kasper Hoffmann, volunteer in Gjakova, 2001 Inside this issue: FOUR YEARS LATER 2 VIDEO OPPORTUNITIES 2 WELCOME TO PLEMETINA 3 ONE VOLUNTEER S CONTRIBUTION 4 TO FLAMBOREE 4 PHOENIX RISING 5 SEEDS OF PEACE 6 TIRANA PROGRAM 7 THANK YOU 7 PLEMETINA PROJECT 8
Four Years Later The Multiethnic Youth Video Project produced Four Years Later, a 42-minute documentary film suitable for broadcast on Kosovo/a television. The youth included three Albanian, three Serbian and three Roma teenagers - Dalibor Jocic, Vladimir Stolic, Nikola Milosavljevic, Faton Mustafa, Ardian Veliu, Tefik Agusi, Rendita Gashi, Muslija Bajra, and Ermira Gjevori. All nine of the participants contributed to the completed film, which explores four themes they chose as a group: refugees, freedom of movement, education, and the media. Kieran D Arcy directed the project. The project began in late August with a team-building and training camp in Brezovica, Kosovo s mountain ski resort. The camp introduced the participants to each other, explored possible themes, and developed a shooting plan. Following this, the group worked individually and together recording material. They visited Plemetinë/ a, Gracanica/ë, Prishtinë/Priština, Lapje Selo, Gjilan/Gnjilane, Obiliq/ć, Prizren and Pejë/Peć. Through the training and the following weeks the filmmakers demonstrated time and again their commitment to showing that they could work and play together. During the training they discussed frankly some of the tragedies of their lives. Throughout they cooperated well and enjoyed their time together. Four Years Later was supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Faton worked on Welcome to Plemetina and Four Years Later. THE FILMMAKERS DEMONSTRATED TIME AND AGAIN THEIR COMMITMENT TO SHOWING THAT THEY COULD WORK AND PLAY TOGETHER. BSF Video... Opportunities Balkan Sunflowers video programs have led to new opportunities for participants. Kreshnik Tahirbegolli was involved in our program in 2000-2001. He and Mark Landsman led the project that made Postcard from Peje, shown at Sundance Film Festival in 2001. He now works as an editor for Dukagjini Television in Kosovo. Participants in that program included Antoneta Kastrati who has since been involved in several film projects and her sister Sevdije who is studying film making in Prishtina. Casey Cooper-Johnson who began to explore film during this period is now making his living as an independent filmmaker in Kosovo. (Casey and Antoneta have a new baby girl!) Four participants in BSF s Welcome to Plemetina project have been included in Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) video training programs in Serbia and Montenegro. Page 2 Dalibor and Rendita learn to use the camera during the training program.
Welcome to Plemetina Welcome to Plemetina has recently been shown (again) twice on Kosovo national television, RTK. The fifteen minute film shows village life, festivals, the poverty of the community, the importance these youth accord to education, and some of the activities that they enjoy. The overwhelming presence of the power plant, the need for a sanitation system, the strains of crowded housing are all depicted. Fourteen Plemetina young people took part in the video workshop. Over several months they recorded life in Plemetina. They looked at their families, their neighbors, their sorrows, joys, and their prospects. In filming, scripting and editing they created a compelling elegy of lives lived simply but with surprising joy despite great challenges. The video workshop was directed by BSF volunteer Kieran D Arcy who has worked as editor and cameraman for Sky News in Australia. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sponsored the media workshop in order to provide media Fatmir Beriša St. George s Day Celebration in Plemetina training for promising minority students as well as an opportunity for Roma in Kosovo to tell their own story. Following the workshop, several of the youth have been included in further OSCE sponsored video journalism training. Plemetina village is some 15 kilometers from Pristina, the capital of the United Nations administered province of Kosovo. Plemetina s 2000 residents live in the shadow of two aging coalburning power plants. Be- fore the 1999 Kosovo War many of the village s breadwinners worked in the power plants or the nearby mines. Today, only government and NGOs provide any employment. In 2001, Balkan Sunflowers opened a community center in Plemetina. While open to all ethnicities Kosovo Serbs, Roma and Albanians live in the village the center has been most active with Roma. Programs since 2001 have included: English at various levels, intensive TOEFL English, computer classes, Roma history, Civic Education, Street Law, children s activities, Scouting, Tai Chi, social advocacy, and the 2003 Youth Video Workshop. In 2004, with the support of Pax Christi Netherlands, Balkan Sunflowers and three local community groups are cooperating in the community center, developing girls and women s sewing and knitting project, expanded computer courses, and a celebration of International Women s Day. BEFORE THE 1999 KOSOVO WAR MANY OF THE VILLAGE S BREADWINNERS WORKED IN THE POWER PLANTS OR THE NEARBY MINES. TODAY ONLY GOVERNMENT AND NGOS PROVIDE ANY EMPLOYMENT. Mehda Skenderi Page 3
Sewing and knitting are popular in Plemetina. One Volunteer s Contribution Ellen Baert came to Kosovo in August 2002. She stayed with Mehda Skenderi s family in Plemetina village. Several generations of BSF volunteers have now stayed with Mehda s family including Scott Van Wagenen,, Kieran D Arcy, Robin Smith, and Ellen. Ellen had worked with Kosovo refugees while in University and wrote her thesis on Kosovar Roma refugees living in Sint- Niklaas, Belgium. With ex- tensive experience as a scout leader, Ellen particularly focused her volunteer work in support of the scout movement in Kosovo. She helped start two groups: in Obiliq town and in Plemetina, and worked hard supporting other groups around Kosovo. She found financial support for the scouts as well as donations of materials, such as an office container. After returning to Belgium she has continued to support BSF, Plemetina, and the scouts. She designed the Plemetina Self-Development project (see page 8) and spearheaded the major effort to get thirty Kosovar scouts and leaders to Belgium for the Flamboree (see next story). Ellen has continued to work with refugees and migrants in Belgium since leaving Kosovo in December 2002. ELLEN HAD WORKED WITH KOSOVO REFUGEES WHILE IN UNIVERSITY AND WROTE HER THESIS ON KOSOVAR ROMA REFUGEES LIVING IN SINT-NIKLAAS, BELGIUM. To Flamboree In an initiative of Ellen Baert and facilitated by scouts in Vremde, Belgium, and Balkan Sunflowers in Kosovo, thirty Kosovar youth and youth leaders traveled to Belgium to participate in an international event organized by V.V.K.S.M. (Flemish Union of Catholic Scouts and Guides). In Kosovo, Norwegian and Finnish KFOR and the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sport provided financial support, Belgian KFOR flew the Scouts, and OSCE provided bus transportation. BSF made three trips to Belgrade and numerous other logistical efforts for passports, visas, meeting with donors, and contacting the scouts. The thirty young Kosovars participated in the international Flamboree with young people from many other countries. Kastriot Selmani, a Podujevo scout, said, The people were great. We were as a family there. Our visit there was the first camp outside our country and re really liked it. They were hosted before and after the event by families and friends in the Vremde area. The group included Albanian, Serbian, and Roma scouts. Kosovar scouts had three weeks in Belgium. Page 4
Phoenix rising Sadly, statistics reveal that high numbers of Roma children drop out of school early, if they have started it at all. A joint response to this situation in Gjilan/Gnjilane included OSCE, Balkan Sunflowers, IOM/KPC, UNICEF, IRC, and local NGO Romanjo Vilo leading to Kosovo s first Roma kindergarten being established in 2001. Managed by BSF, it provides a structured, safe, warm environment where the children (fueled by their afternoon snack) can learn about Roma culture and history, play games, and sing some songs through Roma language. Roma is not the only language in use though. Basic educational skills through a medium of three languages, (Albanian, Serbian, and Roma) provide a foundation for the children that was not available before this initiative. With no mainstream primary or secondary education available in Romani, a grasp of either Serbian or Albanian is crucial to the children s progress in education, and successful interaction with the larger ethnic groups. Both Albanian and Roma children attend the kindergarten, learning about his/her own culture, folklore, and history but also about those of the other groups. An Albanian, a Serb, and a Roma teacher all work together to encourage a more understanding attitude in the children. All of the kindergarten graduates in 2002 entered the primary school, demonstrating that Mohammed, Renaldo and Brenda in Gjilan. the kindergarten provides a counterbalance to the tendency to drop out of school at a young age. The kindergarten, serving the Roma community for almost three years now, has become an institution for not only the attendees but also their families and the wider community. There was great satisfaction, then, that the project s future was guaranteed when Municipal President Mr. Lufti Haziri signed an understanding with the OSCE confirming the take-over of the kindergarten by the municipality. However, on 24 December 2003, nine months after signing the document, the municipality said they could not yet assume financial responsibility for the kindergarten. The kindergarten, previously funded by OSCE (which had no budget to continue funding), was forced to close. Rapidly, though, the kindergarten teachers responded, moving to another temporary location, donated by a local Roma family. With a grant provided by Stichting Limburgsch Protestantsch Kinderhuis, Balkan Sunflowers could guarantee to contribute to materials, the children s snack, and a contribution for a teacher until a permanent solution could be reached. Urgent discussions between the municipality, OSCE, BSF, UNMIK, the kindergarten teachers, and interested parents appears not only to have resolved the crisis, but led to the placement of the kindergarten in a newly refurbished building. This handover of responsibility to the municipality also signifies another step towards a Kosovo in which the community and government respond to the educational and social needs of minorities. Elsuan Agushi THE KINDERGARTEN WAS FORCED TO CLOSE. RAPIDLY, THOUGH, THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS RESPONDED... Teddy bear distribution Page 5
Seeds of Peace Seeds of Peace have been bringing young people in conflict zones together in their Maine summer camps since 1993. Three of our long-time friends from Gjilan participated in Seeds of Peace camps in 2002 and 2003. Tefik Agushi (l) and Demo Demiri (r) pictured here with former President Bill Clinton, in Prishtina, in September 2003, participated in 2002. Demo returned in 2003 as counselor along with Ramiz Sulejmani from Gjilan. BSF participated with Seeds of Peace in a fall program in Kosovo, and in preparing Ramiz for the trip. All of the youth have participated in BSF projects. In 2000, BSF invited Mark Landsman, a filmmaker who had made the highly acclaimed documentary Peace of Mind, with Palestinian and Israeli Seeds of Peace participants, to come to Kosovo to work for one month with our Peja project. One of the resulting films, Postcards from Peja, has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, NY Human Rights Film Festival, and is part of the Witness (www.witness.org) film program for young people. Tirana program BSF Albania s school program has completed the first year of a two year project, supported by Caritas St. Polen, serving some 75 children from very poor families in Tirana. The project community center includes pre-school, fun activities for children including games, songs and poems, homework assistance, registering children without legal status, medical counseling and assistance for families, a food aid project, visits to homes to encourage children s school attendance, and many extra activities. Particularly during the summer months, children were taken places they had never been. Tefik Agushi, President Bill Clinton, and Demo Demiri at American University of Kosova reception. During these months the Albania team organized some activities outside the center; such as an excursion to Dajti Mountain. It was the first time for the kids to visit a mountain. They played together, sang and ate lunch there - the food, refreshments and fruits that the team had prepared for them. More than fifty kids came on that excursion. Another activity with the kids was the visit to the zoo and the national park of Tirana. Children visited the animals and they played and walked around the park. They spent the entire day in the park and enjoyed the food BSF Albania had prepared for them. The kids enjoyed the visit to the park. The community center celebrated the end of the school year in the first week of June. The team organized a party with the children of the school and with other children from the community as well. Many other children who joined the celebration together with the school kids expressed their desire to enter school the following year. Page 6 Sebastian and Adem BSF summer camp staff in 2001 and partners in new education project, have both been invited to a 1 month training program in the USA, July 2004. CHILDREN WERE TAKEN PLACES THEY HAD NEVER BEEN.... IT WAS THE FIRST TIME FOR THE KIDS TO VISIT A MOUNTAIN. BSF Albania children s play yard.
Thank you to our 2003-2004 supporters Belgian KFOR Jacalyn Bennett David and Linda Blair The Bogart family Caritas Italiana Caritas St. Polens Nancy Cooperstein Charney European Scout Office European Voluntary Service Judy Haney Barry and Connie Hershey Hope and Aid Direct Kerkinactie Maria Markowitz Norwegian KFOR Obilic/q municipality Open Society Institute Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Pax Christi Netherlands Dan Ryan Jeanny Ryffel Scouts de France Stichting Limburgsch Protestantsch Kinderhuis Swiss Liaison Office United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Mission in Kosovo USAID Van Itallie Foundation Ian and Amy Wallis World Aid Mission The Wyeth Family Steven and Mary Yarmosky Thanks are due to numerous others who have contributed in many ways and particularly to our Development program including: Madeleine Mosse John Wyeth Making Turkish coffee, a BSF youth photography project photo. Alphabet soup Decani Monastery, Kosovo WE HOPE THAT ALL OF OUR SUPPORTERS FROM 1999 TO 2004 WILL TAKE SATISFACTION IN THE WORK OUR LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEERS HAVE ACCOMPLISHED. This newsletter includes photos, writing, development and editing by: Ghadah Alwari Thomas Bevand Ambika Bhaskar Svetlana Breca Kieran D Arcy Rand Engel Vidya Kumar Andrzej Orlowski Bernard Wright Karmit Zysman Prishtina is not London or Washington, but we may have as many acronyms. For the uninitiated, here is our road map: BSF Balkan Sunflowers IRC International Rescue Committee IOM International Organization for Migration KFOR Kosovo Force, the military mission in Kosovo KPC Kosovo Protection Corps NGO non-governmental organization ORC Office of Returns Coordination OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe TGIF just kidding UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNICEF United Nations Children s Education Fund UNMIK United Nations Mission in Kosovo USAID United States Agency for International Development Thomas Bevand on his way to France. Page 7
Volunteers for Social Reconstruction BALKAN SUNFLOWERS Balkan Sunflowers Mother Teresa Society Building Agim Ramadani Street Prishtina, Kosovo bsfkosovo@yahoo.com +381-38-24-5785 Balkan Sunflowers USA PO Box 861086 St. Augustine, FL 32086 office@usbsf.org +1-904-806-1400 Balkan Sunflowers Euskadi Rioja 4,5 dcha. 48015 Bilbao, Bizkaia Spain bsfeuskadi@euskalnet.net +34-943-20-6907 Balkan Sunflowers Albania Rr Hoxha Tasim Pall 263/1 Tirana, Albania bsfalbania@albaniaonline.com +355 4 360 676 Soncogledi (BSF Macedonia) Sava Kovacovic 11/1/40 Kisela Voda 1000 Skopje, Macedonia soncogledi2001@yahoo.co.uk +389-2-277-3270 Balkan Sunflowers brings volunteers from around the world to work as neighbors and friends in social reconstruction and renewal. By organizing social and cultural activities, we promote understanding, further non-violent conflict transformation, and celebrate the diversity of the lives and cultures of the Balkan region. Volunteers bring skills, experience and enthusiasm to societies that have been depleted by conflict, and the volunteers are themselves enriched by their involvement in community building. Balkan Sunflowers activities are intended both to achieve concrete results and to enliven and empower the participants and their communities. Through play, art, sport, work and celebration, and in compassionate response to traumatic experiences, we serve the communities with whom we live. Visit our web site at www.balkansunflowers.org www.balkansunflowers.org Plemetina Self-Development Project Materials were provided for 38 families to improve their homes. Pax Christi Netherlands, Spolu International, BSF, the Plemetina LCO (local community office), and working groups made up of local people completed Phase I of a Pax Christi sponsored project. Local people proposed, monitored and implemented community improvement projects. In Phase I the groups chose to repair thirty-eight houses and to begin a village sanitation project. The housing project was difficult as the working groups were faced with issues such as deciding which families could receive help, and how the available funds would be allocated. Grants of 100-500 were awarded, allowing families to repair roofs, put in concrete floors, install indoor plumbing, close up houses with doors or windows, and in one case move from a small container to a home. The sanitation project is managed by the local community office. A tractor, wagon, tools, and uniforms were purchased with the Pax Christi grant. The crew picks up garbage in Plemetina and two other villages, removing the trash to the municipal landfill. The project employs five people. Collection of a small monthly fee is beginning which will, hopefully, allow this service to continue. Over time we will see the piles of garbage now found throughout the village disappearing. A second phase has started. The local group has worked with the LCO to choose new projects which will be implemented during the spring of 2004. The project during this stage will train the local group to work with the municipality so that long-term it can advocate for community needs and allow local people, in a multi-ethnic group, to have more of a role and voice in what happens in their community. At various stages BSF volunteers Sabine Wiers, Agnieszka Korus, Richard Havinga and BSF Plemetina manager Dai Mustafa have guided the project.