Srebrenica is of course an infamous town and so it may be useful to read up on what happened there before going. The town can seem unfriendly when you first arrive, due to the state of the buildings more than anything else! There are still a lot of severely damaged buildings in the town and most are covered with bullet holes. After we settled in however, we realized how friendly the people are there. They are eager to practice their English with you and want to learn as much as they can about people from other places. Once people get used to having you there they make you feel very welcome!We were there during a memorial day which was slightly uncomfortable and so kept ourselves to ourselves that day. Generally though we did not experience any ethnic tensions, it is just a town where people are just trying to get on with their lives now. The main problems are now unemployment and drug use.
The SARA centre was set up by the UN and is therefore equipped with computers and other resources. It’s a centre for teenagers but ofter they are quite happy to just play on the computer games all day! Volunteers from the centre therefore often to the local park to recruit children so that they could do activities with them. They are really enthusiastic and a couple of children could speak good English. The centre also holds English lessons for adults a few times a week which we also helped out with. The coordinator of the centre is lovely but does not speak English but other young people did and were happy to spend time in the centre helping out. There are a lot of Dutch volunteers in the town taking part in renovation work and these also do activities with the children sometimes, such as putting on shows for their parents
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Last updated: March 2nd, 2008