Mostar Friedensprojekt e.V.

Mostar Friedensprojekt e.V. is since 1994 a registered non-governmental, non-profit organization with charitable commitments in the state of Brandenburg, located in the city of Potsdam. The association organizes socio-cultural activities, artistic and cultural events and cultural publications. It has coordinated and still leads several Youth exchanges frequently with the South Eastern and Eastern European states, Youth initiatives, European voluntary service and trainings with European countries, in particular with the Balkan and East European and Caucasian states within the framework of the European program YOUTH, GRUNDTVIG, Europe for Citizen and LiFelong Learning. The association established and ran a social centre and an International Centre for culture and education in the city of Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina), with the aim of promoting neighborly attitudes, cooperation with the local culture and subculture also international partnerships with countries from South and Eastern Europe. It consulted and advised former Yugoslavian refugees for their voluntary return from the State of Brandenburg to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mostar Friedensprojekt promoted with some projects the voluntary repatriation of small entrepreneurs and similarly skilled people and it arranged multiple training courses for development projects attended by refugees living in the State of Brandenburg. The association informs about possibilities of education, qualification and counseling to refugees for migrants, asylum seekers and to immigrants and their children and youth. The association has furthermore been participating in SOKRATES and GRUNDVIG. In this framework it conducted in in Germany the Lingua project “Glossomuseum” about the languages of the European Union in elementary schools. Moreover it implemented in Germany the project “The elder I become, the more I want to know” within institutions and organizations for elderly people about the history of the EU and the impacts of the last EU enlargement in 2004. It ran a PHARE Small Projects Program with a European conference about the free movement of persons in the EU-25, titled “Working, Learning, Living” in which experts from labor agencies and EURES-offices, ministries, trade unions, chamber of commerce and employee organizations as well as qualification institutions took part. The association conducted the “Orthopedic Workshop” in Kljuc (Western Bosnia) where prosthesis and orthotics for land mine victims, especially children and younger people, are manufactured. With our partners there we set up social-cultural activities for the youth and handicapped people and an impermanent Bosnian language school. Furthermore we planned and supported the “Mother-Child-Centre” of our partner in Sanski Most (Bosnia-Herzegovina) where daily medical advice and care is given to young mothers and their children. As a social centre too it offers a soup kitchen, laundry for impoverished people and leads a senior citizen home in that city. The association regularly organizes conferences and discussions of political education. These events cover a wide range of themes, for example political information about European Union, Eastern Europe, migration and immigration policy, social security systems, employment, and transformations in Europe. The association’s aims and objectives To promote the active involvement of young people for democracy & liberty, in the fight against racism and xenophobia, all kinds of prejudices, furthermore social exclusion in the entire Europe, To develop forms, methods and tools of participation in political and social-cultural area, To raise awareness, promoting intercultural tolerance & learning, understanding the diversity of cultures, To promote political education on local and regional level in the state of Brandenburg, To provide practical, necessary information and advice about “Living-Working- Education in Europe”.