Youth Festival Turbe 2007

In a municipality which was devastated during the war and is still deeply divided, this annual festival brings local youth together through their shared love of music.

Description

The initiative started in 2003 and this year is the 4th annual festival. It is a way of bringing youth together to enjoy music, and to show them local musical talent – bands and singers. This initiative has a peacebuilding character because of its aims and the place of implementation. In this region we still have open segregation in elementary and high schools and this creates the ground for possible future conflicts. We are trying to fight it by joining youth from all religious and ethnic groups, especially Bosniac and Croat youth who are the majority in this region, but who are mostly divided.

This is an ongoing initiative and we are planning to make it a traditional festival of peace and creativity.

Aims / Objectives

• Youth organising;
• Promotion of ethnic and religious tolerance;
• Promotion of young artists;
• Promotion of peace; and
• Creating open and public bridges of cooperation and communication between youth; who are by the decisions of the ruling political system divided in what we call “two schools under one roof ”.

This initiative addresses the causes of the conflict because it is a public festival that brings youth from these divided municipalities and ethnic groups together and allows the youth to send the message to their peers and their elders.

How it is Articulated

The initiative is implemented through numerous meetings with local associations, schools, and the local municipality in order to organise the details of the festival.

Achievements / Learning points

We are particularly proud to say that we get a lot of help from volunteers, from this municipality and others where our projects are implemented.

What went really well at our last youth festival was the huge number of participants amongst the public and entertainers. The fact that this festival has happened for the fourth time without any conflict or other form of incident is also good.

Bringing youth together was not a problem, because the youth group which organised the activities had been working together on a series of mutual workshops and their good communication is a result of this previous work. The youth from the municipality of Turbe came in a great numbers because this was the only cultural and public event in their municipality! They were happy to see something like this and to enjoy the music played by local and regional bands. The music was not about politics. Mostly it was pop rock bands, rap bands and performers playing well known songs.

In general, we advise other organisations to just keep on working even when it gets difficult.

Geographical Area of Operation

The municipality of Turbe in central Bosnia, in the Federation entity.

Funding Resources

The majority of our projects are funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) but this particular initiative also has donors and sponsors from the private sector, e.g. firms, shops etc.

Organisations Involved

• FORUM SYD – office in Travnik; and
• FORUM SYD – office in Turbe.

Stories

One of the bands who participated in this festival have managed to become really popular here in central Bosnia. Their name is BEWARE.