We were one week into the Football Beyond Borders tour, yet it was plainly evident that this was no time for reflection. All of our days in Mostar had been a resounding success, but we had challenged ourselves in coming to the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, and had an opening day to acclimatise to an entirely polarised culture. The time had come to galvanise our efforts and ensure that we went one step further with our work in the historic centre.
Within our continuous domestic projects that are the backbone of our portfolio of achievements, we do a lot of work fighting the scourge of youth unemployment, working with the organisation Youth Futures in Camberwell to create new schemes such as CV credits to ensure that the poor, young and unemployed in Britain are able to be recognised for relevant forms of volunteer work.
It was our great pleasure today, therefore, to be hosted by an organisation named KULT in Ilidza, just south-west of Sarajevo. Established in 2002, its aims are very similar to ours, tackling youth unemployment caused by bureaucracy, corruption, and even plain laziness to ensure that their newly-developing country grows even stronger. They told us how youth in Bosnia and Hercegovina have no real chance to air their views to politicians without their help. 60% of Bosnians from 15-30 are unemployed, and of the remaining 40%, only half have legitimate jobs, with official assurance that they will be paid from month to month.
Their venue was a community centre named Spajalica in the beautiful forest near Ilidza, a place of harmony where their young volunteers can come and get involved in political activism without fear of discrimination, violence or hate speech. These problems in Bosnia and Hercegovina were also heavily alluded to in the presentation that KULT gave us, as they and their partner organisations are also trying to pass laws in the country to prevent hate speech against any ethnicity from being aired on internet forums such as in social media.
These admirable aims really inspired all of the members of the FBB team, so when it was our turn to present our organisation’s aims and achievements to KULT, we had to make sure that we left no details of our 5 years promoting unity through football out. Luckily team captain Lucas Farthing was on hand to not only do just that, but outline his determination to bring a better future to the Balkan regions, an area embedded within generations of his own family. All of KULT’s members responded with great warmth after his speech and our promotional video, and were very eager for future collaboration, and likewise were we after seeing the great their unbelievable passion for change in the conflict-stricken area.
This conjoining of two kindred spirits in terms of charitable organisations would only serve to be of massive help to us in promoting tolerance to the people of Sarajevo in the coming days. Read on tomorrow to see how the foundations were laid to make gender and ethnicity no longer exist as divides in the city that is crying out for long-lasting peace.
Read the whole of our Football Beyond Borders coverage here.
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