June 7

Today I visited Stolac with NDC. Like I said before, they are working on an education integration program with the school. While I was there, I met the students they were working with and found out more about what they are doing there. NDC is working to bridge the ethnic divide in Stolac. This project was implemented by NDC Mostar (where I am interning) and their aim was to enhance relations between different ethnic groups in the town of Stolac. Their goal was also to improve interethnic relations in an ethnically divided school. They believe that this is the main prerequisite for tackling negative consequences of division within a community marked by ethnically divided education systems. Basically, they were trying to support integrated and inclusive education in Stolac high school. As the school year ends, this project is coming to a close until next fall. But before they closed it, I had the opportunity yesterday to visit the school talk with the students about what NDC is doing. They seemed really proud of the integration progress they have made. One student was telling me that in their orchestra, they have both Croats and Muslims playing together. They also work on a joint newspaper. NDC was there to review and document the newspaper articles for later reports. This is such a big deal here in BiH because currently, students of different ethnicities are completely separate from each other in the school system.

When I spoke with the students at Stolac, they seemed very proud to tell me the progress they are making with integration of Croats and Muslims at the school. They said that they work on a joint newspaper together as well as collectively playing in an orchestra together. I was sitting there talking to two Croats and a Muslim. It seemed to me that they are making great strides toward integration. Because of the legislation in place, NDC has barrier within the school system that they must go around—the biggest one being the fact that ethnic groups have separate curriculums and therefore do not have class together. Without government cooperation, NDC’s project with school integration can only go so far and divisions within society will remain.