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Community Action Projects
Youthbridge focuses on the importance of finding peace not only within one's self but also within the community. Empowering youth by sparking hope and motivation, the community action program aims to provide momentum for successful and sustainable youth activism.
The integrative Youthbridge curriculum encourages students to think about ways in which they can better than community. Every year there are project brainstorm sessions, shortly after which concrete steps for implementation are introduced. The teens meet regularly and bring some of these projects to life, using their new skills attained from other Youthbridge programs to directly impact their community.
The 2007 Youthbridge Community Action Projects
Lack of formal funding resulted in creative project solutions in 2007. Several small projects with no or little budget were implemented, among them the first pre-camp orientation led by former Peace Camp participants in April, and AIDS Awareness Event in December. This particular project took place on World AIDS Day and intended to create open dialogue about AIDS and HIV among the young people of Vukovar. The event was held in a local café where many young people of mixed ethnicity like to meet. Over a microphone, students read facts about the disease while red ribbons and condoms were passed out to the attending crowd. Very little funds were necessary for this project and initiative came 100% from the YB/Rainbow youth.
The 2005 Youthbridge Community Action Projects
Additional funding in 2005 made small community action projects each with a budget of €200-300 possible. In total, there were 15 projects, each run by a student leader and a team of 3-6 student members who were responsible for the organization, implementation, and budgeting.
The projects were small enough in scale for the youth to manage, but significant enough to reflect the growing leadership and civil participation among the youth. Some of the projects included a drug prevention PR campaign, a youth-led radio talk show, a publication of youth newsletter called “Scream,” and an art exhibit called “Young Artists.”
The exhibition
The 2004 Youthbridge Community Action Project
The 2004 Youthbridge participants decided to voice their impressions of the hopes and needs of the Vukovar community by creating a documentary photo exhibition to be presented locally and abroad. With the support of Youthbridge, students of both Serbian and Croatian backgrounds spent one week learning about documentary photography, and then looked beyond the ruins to portray the war-torn and still divided city as they see it.
The exhibit is entitled, “Novi Život: Vukovar Through the Eyes of its Youth.” Novi život means “new life” in Serbian and Croatian languages. With striking insight, the students were able to capture touching, beautiful, and sometimes haunting images of life in Vukovar. The photos attempt to find “new life” in the ruins the teens have known nearly their entire lives.
 
Premier photo exhibition at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for
Peace & Justice in San Diego, California The exhibit made its premier at the Eighth Annual Youth Town Meeting entitled “Human Concerns in a Global Environment” on January 26th, 2005 at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice in San Diego, California. 700 youth and delegates from the United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs enjoyed the exhibit which will be the feature of an international affairs newspaper edited by youth in Southern California.
According to exhibit coordinator Brian Israel, “The photos displayed at the Youth Town Meeting demonstrate that when presented with opportunity, the youth will respond with extraordinary results. I can't think of a group of young people I have ever met that would have approached this documentary project with such commitment, enthusiasm and passion.”
Since the premier, The Vukovar Youth Photo Documentary has been exhibited and well received on numerous occasions in different parts of the Europe:
- March 3, 2005 at the Youthbridge Benefit in Vienna, Austria
- May 27, 2005 at a Vukovar City Art Exhibit in Vukovar, Croatia
- July 7, 2005 at a Youthbridge event at the Raiffeisen Bank in Judenburg, Austria
- June 10, 2006 at a Youthbridge Benefit (Art Auction) in Berlin, Germany
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