On Wednesday, 21 April, and on Thursday, 22 April, a series of events took place in Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina to celebrate the Day of School of Vaso Pelagić Gymnasium and commemorate the 60th anniversary of this educational institution. The main event was the Fair of Resemblance, which was the implementation of the competition winning project from the Intercultural Challenge competition, organized by CEP.Activities have started in the Youth Center with an evening presentation of the school newspaper "Gimnazijalac", supplemented with musical and theatrical programme that was attended by many students, teachers and principals from the local gymnasium and 11 other high schools and gymnasiums from BiH, Serbia and Croatia. Representatives of local authorities, educational institutions and non-governmental organizations in BiH also attended the programme.
The next day's activities were planned to take place in the open, but had to move to the school hall due to bad weather. Participants there had an opportunity to search for similarities and strengthen the bonds between them by attending different fair stands and inter-school sports activities. In the heart of the happening, the "Socializing with Different Groups" stand offered a talent show and amusement with musical and comedy performers. Socializing was also the main goal of the "Good vibrations" stand, where students shared positive thoughts and created links with their host schools. Stands as the "Ask the Authority", "Give Ideas, Solve the Problems" and "Get to Know Yourself" were intended to deal with current problems of individuals and young people and find common solutions. These stands provided the young with a forum for the exchange of questions and answers on educational matters, informed them about the current youth problems such as addiction, weapons, HIV and the like, and dealt with psychological tests of self-realization. There was also graffiti drawing in front of the school, while the sports hall hosted volleyball, handball and football matches of hosts and guests. In addition, the school premises were freely accessible to all participants to visit various exhibitions in the cabinets. In the afternoon, the scene moved to the Cultural Center where students performed the show titled "Meeting Spring" and concluded with the formal lunch at the nearby hotel.
"Fair resemblance" is a project prepared by five students of Vaso Pelagić Gymnasium: Mirela Ivkić, Ismet Bahor, Ena Merić, Radana Perkanović and Darija Žilić with their mentor Sanela Fejzić. Their project has won the "Intercultural Challenge" competition, which was carried out by CEP last year. The winning team was selected due to their original approach to solving the problem of ethnic segregation in education system of BiH through a "fair", which enables search for similarities and focuses the attention of the youth on intercultural dialogue. In addition to implementation of the mentioned contest, CEP also helped to organize the "Fair of Resemblance" and financially supported all the activities.
Contact Person: Gregor Skender, project manager
