/ Youth Work as Part of the Peace Process
The margins of Sarajevo are inhabited by socially disadvantaged population groups. Unemployment, a general lack of perspectives and insufficient state support for the youth have led to a disquieting situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The young people are disillusioned and feel generally unwanted. Ethnic hatred is passed on from one generation to the next, a state known as 'transgenerational traumatisation'. Faced with this situation, cfd became involved in three youth projects in Sarajevo and Vareš from 2010.
To stop young adults from sliding into lives filled with violence, crime and addiction, the projects offer individual and group therapies for traumatised youths, creative workshops and a weekly leisure programme for children and young people in schools, Roma settlements and an orphanage. They also support special learning programmes for children with learning difficulties. Young women engage in public action events, learning to take on an active role in shaping their societies. Voluntary workers from schools and higher training institutions receive basic educational training and work on pilot projects in the social services. Teachers receive specific training in order to deal better with traumatised youth. All of these measures support the young people in their development on social and personal levels, making them more able to work towards a non-violent and socially just future.
All three youth projects were initiated by local groups wanting to offer young people a real place in their communities, better opportunities for professional development, and positive experiences of self-organization and initiative. They wanted to provide them with a social space where real exchange and understanding can develop, where they would be able to work through traumatic (war) experiences and learn constructive ways of dealing with conflict.
