We Do Adventure

Tonight we are officially at the end of our Novi Most summer activities for another year. We had a parents evening to finish things off, giving them a chance to see what their young people had been up to over the last two months. We crammed a bunch of activities into a short video to tell the story, although there was plenty of good stuff that didn't make the cut. It's been another summer where we've seen lots of young people get the opportunity to try new things and have some great some great experiences they probably wouldn't have got on their own. For us it's encouraging to know we have happy parents of the happy young people we've been working with. As we said to them this evening, now we have a bit of a break and we start to think what's going to make this winter special when our activities start up again in October.

Sunday was the culmination of many months of work for Rowan. Preparations for the Neverland street art day in Jajce had seen here crocheting long into the night for weeks, as our spare bedroom became an Aladdin's cave of inspired creations. There had been workshops in the local cultural centre, giving young people the chance to create, and craft parties for the twenty and thirty-somethings. What all this hard work needed was a good day to show it to the world - or at least the local community. It got it: a day, if anything, too good. Last year's event was interrupted by heavy thunder storms, this year the sun beat down unrelentingly and it was hot. Decorating the town started at 7am, the art intended for people to take was put out about midday. By the time the day finished with an outdoor acoustic concert almost everything was taken.

By now friends and followers of this blog who like the Novi Most Facebook page will be well aware that the organisation is making the most of the opportunity afforded by social media to get the word out. This is important. We who are involved in the work know it's needed, and appreciated, work that's making a difference. However we also know that if we don't explain that whats and the whys of it the details can be hard to second guess from the other side of Europe, less so from even father afield. That's the idea behind the series of short videos Novi Most is releasing: concise presentations of the issues affecting young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and what Novi Most is doing in response. Having worked on putting these, and the accompanying photos, together it's good to seem them being shared and commented on online. Social media provides a great opportunity to share a story at the click of a button. We want to make the most of this opportunity. But we are al...

Things have been a little quiet on our blog for the past couple of weeks. That's usually a sign things are not quiet in our offline existence - and this has certainly been no exception to that rule. April has, thus far, consisted of scaling the steep learning curve of handling a DSLR for the first time, racking up the road miles around Bosnia and Herzegovina and hours of editing video footage. Tomorrow Novi Most, the UK-based charity we volunteer for, will begin releasing the first of the new photos and videos I have been working on. Whether you're a fan of Facebook , Twitter , YouTube or good old-fashioned websites you'll be able to get a fresh insight into the important work Novi Most is engaged in.  My hope is these new videos, images and editorial help increase people's understanding of the issues young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina grow up facing. Until tomorrow, here's a teaser...

It's been just over two years since we moved from Mostar to Jajce. Mostar is not short of internationals living there; there are governmental agencies, non-governmental agencies and the United World College that between them draw people from the four corners of the globe. Jajce is different. There are very few foreigners who live in the town and while many of the young people we work with seem to have cousins or aunts or uncles scattered across Europe, or in the States, we found ourselves with a lot of explaining to do. “Where are you from?” “England.” What's that?” is, believe it or not, an accurate translation of an early conversation. At least one young person was convinced London and America were basically the same thing. Another stated categorically that soon the US would be part of Europe, because eventually everyone was going to be part of Europe. This had to be true: their teacher had told them! But all this happened before One Direction. In the last year they hav...

We recently came by a generous consignment of tortilla chips. Although they are readily available in shops here they are relatively new and comparatively expensive. Most of the young people we work with had never tried them before. It's fair to say most were not impressed when they came out of the box last week. This week, in an attempt to spice up the taste experience, our local colleague suggested we buy some salsa dip and make a more local-orientated dip, by mixing sour cream and ajvar – a relish made predominately from red peppers. This afternoon he gave a short talk introducing the concept of dipping chips and I joined him in a demonstration of how this is done. To their credit almost all the young people attending our Novi Most youth club session gave this culinary novelty a try. The mild Mexican salsa was deemed to hot and spicy by a few that I spoke to, nevertheless a couple of bags of chips were happily munched through. This is just another example of a ne...

You'll spot maybe half a dozen umbrellas in this video, if you watch closely enough. What you won't see is any footage of the two enormous thunder storms that sought to disrupt last Thursday afternoon's performances. The first of these storms was freakishly heavy, with a healthy dose of hail mixed in with the torrential rain. It came on so hard and fast that, despite being under cover, our PA desk looked like it had just take a shower. The area where you see people dancing was a lake just half an hour before some of this footage was filmed. What this video does show is young people getting up to perform in front of their peers and their community, a few of them for the very first time. (All the musicians attend Novi Most music courses with me or Budo.) You'll also see some of the organisers, and the Director of Novi Most, enjoying a moment of madness as rain-stopped-play once again. The final performances happened inside, although in the rush of re-rigging the PA...

After a busy weekend in Sarajevo, today was a day off. I decided to make the most of the sunshine and head out on my mountain bike around the lakes near Jajce. I'd been going about an hour when I stumbled across this sight: the super-sized marriage of a decoy duck and a pedalo. Obviously, a photograph was essential, not just for its comedic value but because it illustrates an important attitude we have to our work here. Last summer we ran a month of activities with Novi Most for young people in Jajce. At the end of August we asked those who been involved for some feedback. Of the seventeen who filled out our questionnaires fifteen acknowledged they had some new experience over the summer: for some it was visiting a new city; for others it was going down a water slide at an aqua park; others went up an escalator for the first time. Having new experiences, at least fun, positive ones, is an exciting thing. The young people we worked with over the summer ended up with a better sense o...

Despite the unquestionable inconveniences it causes there is still something wonderful about a decent snow fall. It's too easy to grow up and only view the downsides. Working with young people provides a healthy reminder to never get too detached from your childlike - perhaps even childish - side. And so it was that a Facebook post gathered a group of the young people we know for a bit of fun in the snow on Saturday morning. Our group had a collection of sledges of various vintages and a large plastic sheet to venture down the slope between apartment blocks on. Other young people from the area were out on skis, performing jumps that would have given the health and safety brigade a heart attack. As with a lot of good old fashioned fun, our couple of hours in the cold resulted in a few bruises but a whole load of happy memories...and a video or two!

Spring has sprung...at least that was the conclusion I had to draw when we turned up at Novi Most's youth centre in Mostar after this morning's uni-hockey practise session in a nearby school. The sun was out and so, it seemed, where most of our regulars. The patch of green (or more often brown) space in front of the Klub building was covered in young people wielding rakes and picking up litter. This was outdoor spring-cleaning in action; even the pavements were getting a wash and sweep! It's at this point I could pose the classic question: do you want the good news or the bad news? Naturally, it's a rhetorical question. So here's the bad news. Thanks to Mostar's strong winds and its inhabitants propensity to litter it will not be long before it looks like this morning never happened. But the good news is it did happen. I wasn't there but I'm certain the clean up was initiated by one of our local workers. Encouraging young people to all muck in with clean...

Last night Rowan and I drove to Chesham to here Claire Gingell and Dalibor Kojic speak about young people, church, and Bosnia Herzegovina. Claire is now Novi Most's longest serving worker in Mostar and Dalibor is Pastor of Brankovac Evangelical Church in East Mostar. The evening had many memorable moments but one of the funnier was when Dalibor was explaining their values. He told how he had inherited a church with a vision statement but had always struggled with its wording until one day he realsised that Jesus gave us the Great Commission - that is the vision. His refreshingly straight-forward approach seemed to challenge our desire to hide behind cool slogans: "I don't need church for the 21st century!" We had to smile. It was great to catch up with Gill again, and to get the chance to introduce our parents to Novi Most. And so the countdown continues. It's less than four months until we move. I must get back learning vocab!