Mobile culture container

June 20^th

Andrea Saula

Hello and welcome to UNMIK on Air with Martin Redi.

What will my future be like? How can I help to build lasting peaceful co-existence? What future lies in store and how can I start, today, to defend my own future? Those are the questions for young people participating in the Mobile Culture Container in Mitrovica.

It’s an odd name for a travelling roadshow aimed at fostering integration in ex-Jugoslavia’s war-torn regions. Since May 2001 it has toured to the cities of Tuzla, Osijek, Cacak, Gorazde, Mostar, Banja Luka, Skopje, Bitola, Novi Pazar and this summer it has come back to Mitrovica time.

Its first visit last year was judged a success: youth from both sides of the divided city became, and in many cases have remained, friends.

Suada Korenica: My name is Suada Korenica, I am part of the mobile cultural container, I think this is a very good thing, since it gathers together youth from the south and from the north, we talk together, and this way the two parts join, since Mitrovica is still divided, and this process helps Mitrovica to be a free (she says liberated) town one day.

Merita and Amra: We are having a good time. Young people from the north and from the south part of town are here. About 25 of us come here everyday. We are having joint meetings; we are discussing all topics.

Merita and Amra are involved in a newspaper workshop and they’re back for the second year. The project is functioning through workshops mostly dedicated to media affairs. Josipa Crnoja, one of coordinators of this project, says the main idea is for young people to find answers to questions about their future.

Josipa Crnoja: This year we changed the concept a bit. And the difference is in the fact that this year we are more concentrated on media. We are functioning through a so-called media container. There are three major workshops: Radio, TV and Newspaper and Digital photography It is the possibility for the young people to try to use the advantages of media. It means that they should use media in order to show their attitude, to show their critical consciousness and their approval or disapproval of their situation.

Josipa emphasizes the container is supposed to be a pleasant and creative place where young people can meet. It is also a place that challenges people to combine creativity and discipline to achieve something sustainable. Suada Korenica, now on vacation, and one of the participants in this year’s Mobile container, is more than satisfied.

Josipa Crnoja: I think this is very fun. Now we are not going to school anymore and we spent almost the whole day here. Now we are working on the first issue of our newspaper that will come out in a couple of days.

The future is up to young people, Josipa stresses. If they don’t become open minded enough to bridge their differences now, it will be too late. So far it seems to be working.

Josipa Crnoja: The main aim of this container is to have a long lasting effect. That is achieved by maintaining the goals we reach in different cities. We founded 11 editorial offices in 11 different cities in the whole ex Yugoslavia. That means that we have a large number of active young people in those workshops.

And it’s those young people - like Suada and Amra in still bitterly divided Mitrovica – who really give hope.

Suada: Oh, yes we have the support of our parents. I live in the north and I think that this is the only way for us to come together and to be just like before the war, to be together, to exchange our opinions, we from the North and they from the South, all together, Albanians and Serbs.

Amra: I have support from my family and from friends, since they too think this is a good thing and that only this way we can converse together again.

Later this month the mobile culture container ends its mission in Mitrovica and heads for its final destination – Mostar, another city struggling to reconnect connections devastated by a war.

That’s all for today from UNMIK on Air, thanks for listening and stay tuned for more.