Bosnia - Land of Children

The incredible experiences we had with Zmelje Djece in Tuzla, Bosnia, have been slightly taken over in my mind by the current crisis in Syria, which is threatening our entire project.

We arrived at Zmelje Djece in Tuzla, Bosnia last Wednesday evening, and ended up staying there until yesterday afternoon. Bosnia is an incredible country, with beautiful countryside, fantastic people, and a deep undercurrent of political instability and unrest. All of this combined made for an incredibly interesting few days, where optimism and pessimism went hand in hand.

Each and every person we met at Zmelje Djece were inspiring, committed, and passionate people. They all cared a huge amount about their work, and the children they support. They all have incredible and varying skills and experiences, and really the TELEX centre for children, where we spent virtually all of our time in Tuzla, is not just a nice part of the community, but an absolutely essential one.

The pessimism comes from the political situation in Bosnia. A situation, which effects the day to day lives of everyone who lives there, and more so, really limits the work an organisation like thus can do. One extremely worrying thing we heard from Centre Co-ordinater Amir, was that his vast experiences and successes in the sector are not even recognised by other employment bodies, and indeed the government in his country. He spoke of a job application process, where the position he applied for, and was incredibly suited for, was given to someone completely inexperienced as a consequence of heritage. In addition to this, unlike the UK, and many other countries, volunteer work goes virtually unrecognised, and thus it is almost impossible to maintain a steady flow of voluntary support.

Their philosophy is fantastic, and their intention to pass the control of the centre down to future generations admirable, in a country where unemployment rates are extraordinarily high. The children who regularly visit the centre, be them from the Roma Community, broken homes, or even just children who want to make friends and learn skills, benefit an incredible amount from the activities they participate in.

A prime example of this was teenager Almir, who grew up in extremely difficult circumstances, with no electricity, running water, and with parents suffering form alcoholism. Until Almir first visited the centre four years ago, he simply used to roam around the various hills and forests in his area, and received absolutely no official education at all. Almir's thirst for knowledge, however, did develop, and his knowledge of local plant and tree species was incredible to see. Since he has come to Telex he has developed several other skills, including playing the guitar, and painting. He also is now extremely keen to learn English.

Almir is a prime example of the potential that all children have, regardless of background. It is this very potential that Zmelje Djece are trying to fulfil within so many children, in Tuzla. The only thing getting in their way, and it is a big thing, is the structure, or lack of structure within Bosnia to support such wonderful ventures. On top of this, limited support from the International Community, is seeing far fewer children's lives being changed than should be.

It seems that Bosnian charities are suffering from having fallen 'out of fashion' with grant giving bodies and International support networks, since the immediate aftermath of the war in the mid nineties. The situation, however, as we saw with our own eyes, is very much still desperate, and without the work of organisations such a Zmelja Djece, even more children would be left starved of their basic human rights.