Balkan Sunflowers

   Each year at all the UWC schools students participate in project weeks, where we are given a week off of school to arrange a project doing social service, investigating historical events, analyzing economic situations, doing sports activities, discovering cultures, and many other creative ideas.
    This year I chose to go to the new country of Kosovo to work in a school as part of a program named  Balkan Sunflowers.  The learning center that we will be working at is located just outside of the capital Prishtina.  Our group is seven members strong including Andy Hemphill (USA), Benedikt Gottwald (Deutschland), Dorontine Berishaj and Amer Bralic (Montenegro), Dani Ramajo Falcon (Spain) and our mentor Martin from Germany.
   This grassroots organization was first created in 1999 during the Kosovar war to aid refugees and Roma people.  There are two major projects, the Learning Centers Network and Great Films that Change Our World.  Their three primary areas of focus are the community, human dignity, and children and youth.
     While we are there we will be living with host families and working at a learning center during the day.  We will be leading workshops for the kids at the learning center between the ages of 5 to 18.  We organized science demonstrations, musical workshops, environmental education, artwork, geography, sports, and other ways of interacting with the kids.  Also, during the day we will help to cook and serve hot meals for the children, and we will be working on several building projects for the school.
    Some other students from our school are doing amazing trips as well - a group of people left last night for Istanbul to research religious minorities, two groups are going to Wien (Vienna) to research Balkan immigrants there, and to experience the culture.  There are also people going to Slovenia, Belgrade, Croatia and Sarajevo.  I'm really proud of all the student initiative that made these projects into reality.