Elisa Lopez

Andrew Loh, Lisa Riddle, Jess Engebretson, and Deivid Rojas display a Bosnian flag.

BY TRAVIS POLLEN

In print | September 4, 2008

Over the summer Andrew Loh ’10, Trude Raizen ’08, Lisa Riddle ’09, and Deivid Rojas ’11 traveled to Zenica, Bosnia, from June 12 to July 18 to teach local children, ages 5 to 15, English and nonviolent conflict resolution through games, arts and crafts, and cooperative physical activity.
Jess Engebretson ’09, a transfer student and past participant in the program through the College of William & Mary, helped to plan the trip. “It was such a great experience when I went the summer after my freshman year that I wanted to bring it to Swarthmore,” she said.

Sezam, a non-governmental organization located in Zenica, began this low-cost summer program in 1995 after the end of a devastating three-year war as a way to keep children off the streets and away from their televisions screens. At the time, there were no other summer enrichment opportunities available to children in Zenica.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Bosnia and Herzegovina is the second poorest country of the former Yugoslav federation, and although Zenica is the third largest city in Bosnia, it remains dilapidated. Its economy is stagnant, unemployment is high, and crime is widespread.
Along with six William & Mary students, the group of four teamed with Sezam to assist in the efforts to improve the lives of the local youth in Zenica. “We all arrived very late on June 12. Over the next three days we got to know our host families and the town, and we set up the classrooms. We brought some supplies, but William & Mary shipped boxes of supplies over,” Riddle said.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the students would design the entire curriculum, exploring the city and country extensively in between. What resulted was a mixture of school and camp, as daily activities included vocabulary practice, translation from Bosnian to English and vice versa in order to emphasize the importance of the native tongue, field activities, and games such as Jeopardy, hangman, bingo, and mafia.
“We had international days every week representing different countries. Since Andrew is Asian and I’m Hispanic, the kids found out that not everyone is blond-haired and blue-eyed,” Rojas said. The students divided the children by age into three sections of about a dozen each and taught in pairs.
“Their education is very structured and rigid. Here, they could be very creative,” Rojas said.

One of the most rewarding activities was the mural project that students and children alike completed on a side of the school during the culminating week. “Going into Bosnia, I was thinking about a project that would involve all the kids, something that everyone could work on together,” Rojas said. “We spent days and days talking about it and looking around the city. After a while, it just kind of came to me.” The wall first had to be painstakingly cleaned of graffiti and painted white. Only then could every child place his or her hands on it to help make the shape of a tree, flower, sun, or rainbow. “The kids loved the end result,” Rojas said.

In English Sezam literally means “open sesame.” While the organization “aims to unlock children’s hearts and minds” according to www.bosniaproject.org, Riddle said she felt that the children arrived on the first day with this openness and a set of conflict resolution skills already in place.
The group dynamic did change over the course of the progam, as the participants became more familiar with one another. Some started off shy, others aggressive, but by the end of the program, the children were noticeably more respectful of their peers.

“The atmosphere was much friendlier at the end. If someone were sitting out, one of the kids would go over and ask them to come join in. We also had to watch out for kids making fun of each other in Bosnian, so Andrew learned a lot of Bosnian insults,” Riddle said.
In previous years, Sezam had more interested children than space permitted. However, this past summer they expanded into two school buildings, providing services for well over 100 youngsters. Nevertheless, enrollment was not as high as expected, due to a lack of advertising and organization, said Riddle.

One disagreement was over the issue of money. “I thought the kids weren’t going to be charged for the program. I got mad even though it was only a small fee,” Rojas said. Another obstacle the students encountered was the departure of the in-class translators, local university students who had volunteered to help facilitate but ended up studying for exams instead.

For some of the students, it was their first time abroad. Not only did they teach the children, but they also learned from them. “The kids there were incredible. They were really motivated, and they really wanted to be there. We take our education and the resources we have for granted,” Rojas said.
The students gained an understanding of cultural differences and diverse opinions of history and even learned a little Bosnian. “The kids thought it was hilarious the way we pronounced things, but there are three pronunciations of the letter C!” Riddle said. While the teaching and planning experience may have been draining, the students had most of the afternoons and evenings for leisure and sightseeing. “It was tiring but in a very satisfying way,” Riddle said.

A significant portion of funding came from the Davis Projects for Peace, for which the college submitted its application just before the deadline, thanks to the help of the Lang Center and Professor Steve Piker. Additionally, students raised an even greater sum through other sources such as friends, family, and the college itself.

They were able to contribute well over $5,000 to the NGO.
Since the program is no longer starting from scratch, it is Engebretson’s hope that having a team of experienced returning students will facilitate preparations for future years.
E-mails from the children demonstrate how they anxiously await the students’ return next summer.
However, funding will have to come from sources other than Projects for Peace, which finances only new ventures. The future is thus uncertain.

Rojas believes, however, that there is a strong need for such programs all over the world, not just in Bosnia. Riddle, for one, would love to go back. “The best summer I’ve ever had,” she said.

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