Bosnia: Twinning dreams at walls of connection

The team in Bosnia kicked off their series of the Walls of Connection building block by bringing together youth from Bosnia and The Netherlands. The youth from Bosnia featured a wide diversity of minority groups (Syrian refugees, Palestine, Egyptian immigrants, Nigeria) in addition to Bosnians from diverse backgrounds such as Serbia, Kosovo, Slovenia, Macedonia and Albania. These students joined their Dutch counterparts from The Netherlands of Utrecht’s Geography Students Association, linked by the Dutch Embassy.

 The chosen wall was a wall of the ‘Fifth Gymnasium Sarajevo’. This school is among the few that stayed open during the Bosnian War (1992 – 1995) and was chosen because it is located in the neighborhood Dobrinja. Here, even 20 years after the war, the conflict is still visible via segregation policies, laws and borders within the country. Dobrinja is located on the “border” between two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Srpska. 

A wall for Urban Transformation

This wall is just one of the steps in the urban transformation of Dobrinja that can bring about positive change in the divided communities. Viktor Baskarad was the role model who artistically managed this project and he trained 5 muralists, chosen from the local youth participants Before the painting took place, the Bosnian and Dutch students gathered for a pre-discussion, talking about the importance and logistics of a Wall of Connection. 

And there’s more…​

So far Albania, Bosnia, Georgia, Morocco and The Netherlands kicked-off their Walls of Connection building block for our Creative Twinning project ACT!, In Albania the wall was part of their kick-off summit, in Morocco the training of muralists started for the wall expected in September, The Netherlands kicked off the activity with a wall in the city of Zwolle as part of the urban integration of the city and in Bosnia the team finalized 5 walls already.