From the 16th to 24th of July, the members of Youth for Peace had a study visit to Italy. The first two days of the visit, the members had the chance to meet some volunteers of Caritas Vittorio Veneto, who are planned to be participants at the Summer School of Peace in Banja Luka. The goal of Youth for Peace members was to find out what are their expectations about the visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina, through interactive workshops and exercises.

The main part of this visit was happening at the small city Pescia, province Toscana. Youth for Peace delegation has been welcomed by the enthusiastic volunteers of Caritas Pescia, who were also the hosts. First reason of the visit was to introduce the members of YfP with the situation in Italy about working and protecting the children without parental care. Youth for Peace delegation was interested in this topic mostly because its own work: organization of Summer and Winter camps as well as other educational activities for children and young people, in the past four years. Ideas and experience which are presented by the institutions of Italy are very important for Youth for Peace and gaining better quality of their activities.

For the better introduction of the system for protecting children without parents, the group met the representatives of Centro Affidi, a regional organization whose goal is to work with and get a better protection and better position for the children without parental care and children from the socially endangered families. They spoke with the members of the organization about the legal framework and the parallels between the law in Italy and the law in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the upcoming days the group had the chance to see the situation in practice. They visited four communities, “La Locomotiva”, “Piccolipassi”, “Diamocile Ali”, and one Family community. All of these communities represent the realization of legal regulations for the children and youth without parental care. It is about a model which is overcoming the classic model of institutional accommodation, it provides the children and youth with the apartments and houses where they can continue to live in a family community after they leave the foster homes, with other children which are in the same or similar situation. In every community, there is a social worker, psychologist, and a few assistants who care about the educational development, contact with the parents and socialization of the kids. The evenings were reserved for something else – for two public meetings. Youth for Peace delegation had the meeting with the local people and they were talking about their experience in work with youth, experience in work for peace, and in inter-religious dialogue in BiH, all impediments but also the beauty of it.

The penultimate day of the stay, Youth for Peace participated the first ever meeting of the bishops and the effendi od Islamic community in the region. At that meeting the hosts were talking about their experience with the inter-religious dialogue, and after them, the members of the Youth for Peace shared their experience too. The meeting was fulfilled with the attendance of young parishioners, which had to leave the day after for a meeting of Catholic Youth in Krakow. At the end, there was a dinner, that was blessed with a Catholic, Orthodox, Islamic and Jewish prayer.

On the last day, the host organized “A passeggio per la pace” – a walk of peace, imagined as a tour around the city Pescia. Beside the touristic attractions, at different stops of the tour, local organizations active in charitiy, volunteer and social work presented themselves to the delegation. Around 60 people were participating on this walk. After that there was a public forum on “Peace and integration”. There were a lot of participants, including the representatives of the Caritas Voltera; Effendi of city Ancona, the founder of the Islamic community in Italy; and the representatives of Youth for Peace. All panelists shared their own experience of the dialogue from the perspective of Italy and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This work visit is very important for Youth for Peace. By exchanging of the knowledge and experience through conversation with the colleagues, associates and friends from Italy, the link between Italy and BiH has grown and that made the fundament for the future joint projects.