Alumni Impact: Youth Leadership Alumni in Action
Alumni in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina collaborated on a successful project to help their community.
Guest post by FIUTS Youth Leadership Program alumnus Mateo Cocvic
The Bosnia YLP Spring 2014 group
On October 17th, alumni of the FIUTS Youth Leadership Program Spring 2014 organised a charity event in partnership with the organization Minores under the name ''Teenagers in Action.'' The purpose of the event was to collect food, medicines, and winter clothes for socially vulnerable families in city of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The reason why alumni decided to do the project is the fact that Mostar is counting more and more families that are not able to provide essentials for themselves. Families are not given any help by the government, the only help the get is from events like these.
See an article (in Bosnian!) and more photos from the service project here.
In the project three schools were participating: high school ''Gimnazija fra Grge Martića,'' high school "Jurja Dalmatinca'' and ''high school Faust Vrančić." The schools decided to give space for donations. During the event students of these school brought food, special essentials for babies, and winter clothes. After donations were received they were sorted and transferred directly to families. Not only students participated, but also many other people who wanted to give house essentials such as are carpets, pans, blankets etc.
The news about the event quickly spread and we had a postman bringing a package of food and hygienic basics in the name of the local post office. The next week hearing about the project local kindergartens and other school donated the food to organisation. The outcome was astonishing: all 15 families that Minores had in their data base were given food for next three months.
Photo from another Bosnian news article about the successful project!
We are overwhelmed with the number of people who helped us in this way or another. The teachers who spread the word, and young people who came to volunteer. And also the media. We (Mateo and teacher Danijela) gave interview for news paper ''Dnevni List,'' Doria did the local Tv ''RTM' and Mateo gave a radio interview and three for internet portals!
Great work, everyone!
The Youth Leadership Program with Bosnia and Herzegovina is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the program here.