Vacation from War on the one hand aims to bring young people from different countries and ethnic groups together and to reduce prejudice and hatred. On the other hand, the project aims to strengthen long-term contacts and promote joint activism for fundamental and human rights, dealing with the past and peaceful coexistence.Many young people do no longer want their lives to be determined by the past and the division of society according to ethnic categories – this is where the project Vacation from War starts. Maida Avdić from Tuzla explains in her own words what the project means to her and why YU-Peace is important for her.
“My name is Maida and I was born and raised in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Growing up in Tuzla which is a small city in Bosnia, I have always been exposed to people with other nationalities, though my nationality was always the majority. I consider myself lucky that from such a young age I have known that through all of our difference we can still be close, we can still be friends, we can still be family. So, joining YU-Peace, I knew it would be a place where I get to know all about our past, about the war, what happened, about that we are all just people and all the prefixes we put to that just don’t really matter. Confronting the past is a hard thing to do when it goes against everything you were told since you were a child. And that’s how it is for some of the young people participating in these activities. Being in the room with a hundred of young people learning about the war and about what all happened, learning about love, learning about the values we should all accept, brought us together in a way which is hard to explain. That said, I will always be happy and proud to say that I was a part of this story.”