Between the 23^rd-24^th of April, in the context of  O’visor project, following the successful Photo Exhibition held in Greece during February, IASIS NGO and partners from 8 different European countries had the honor to attend the Photo Exhibition in Sarajevo. The host of the event was BRAVO – Bosnian Representative Association for Valuable Opportunities. The photo exhibition was based on voluntary intervention and humanitarian help during crisis situations, such as earthquakes, fires, other natural disaster or even war. During the Photo Exhibition implementation, we had the chance to demonstrate photos of the current Ukrainian crisis and raised awareness among all Europeans on how to act during humanitarian crisis.

23.04. we held the first day of the Only What You Give is Yours (O’visor) Photo Exhibition “Hold Your Hand to Others” in our beautiful home city of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We welcomed our friends from our 9 partner organizations to our home country to join us for this special 2-day event!

The organizations taking part in this great project are:

• Bosnian Representative Association for Valuable Opportunities (BRAVO)
• Alliance for Global Development (AGD)
• Ifjúsági Stratégiai Kutatóközpont Alapítvány (Youth Strategic Research Center Foundation)
• Moby Dick
• New Vision
• SFERA SERBIA
• SYNCRO SYNERGY CROATIA
• World of Change
• IASIS
• Mladiinfo Montenegro

With the main aim of the O’visor project being to create EU relationships forward in founding and recognizing cross-border volunteerism, we based the theme of our Photo Exhibition on the aforementioned aim. Each partner organization had open submissions for photos and illustrations related to the theme of the solidarity of volunteers in crisis situations. We narrowed down the photo submissions to a select 80 photos, the photos which represented the theme of the exhibit the most.

As on Saturday was just the first day of the Photo Exhibit, we only prepared half of the selected photos for showing (40). Prior to the Photo Exhibition which took place from 15-18h, all of the members from each partner organization met at 10:30h where we reviewed our agenda for the day, went over dissemination protocols, and discussed our upcoming events. Today’s Photo Exhibition venue was Fondacija Izvor Nade (Foundation Source of Hope), an NGO with the aim of improving educational, cultural, spiritual and traditional values of pupils, students and other citizens, and of promoting good in all segments of society.

We had our great Director Ismail Šehić introduce BRAVO and the O’visor project. Following the introductions, we had special guest speakers share stories about the work they do in their daily lives. Delila Bajrić from Fondacija Izvor Nade shared with us information about the foundation and the great work they do. We had Arnej Mirsilić, a Bosnian photographer and videographer, share his experiences about why he got into photography and the importance of it. Next we had two speakers from Gorska Služba Spašavanja (Mountain Rescue Service) talk about the work they do when it comes to saving people’s lives in crisis situations. Lastly, we had border police officer Mirela Mujović talk about the International Police Association and the work they do.

Following the guest speakers, Ezana, the O’visor Project Coordinator,  led everyone upstairs to the Photo Exhibition where we showcased 40 of the 80 selected photos. We had multiple people from Bosnia who submitted photos attend the Photo Exhibit themselves which was amazing to see! We are very pleased with the outcome!

24.04 Today we held the second day of the Only What You Give is Yours (O’visor) project Photo Exhibition “Hold Your Hand to Others” at Homework Hub Sarajevo, a collaborative and coworking space. We had the pleasure of hosting our first guest speaker Ruvejda Dizdarević from the Association “Centre for Humanitarian Diplomacy“ (CHD) Sarajevo. Ruvejda introduced the work CHD has been doing with migrants and refugees in Bosnia and showed us various photographs. Our next guest speaker, Ibrahim Malla, co-founder of CHD, showed us touching photographs and campaigns that he has worked on with the Red Cross in various countries such as Ecuador and most recently, Ukraine. Humanitarian photography is needed in our world and the impact these types of photographs and campaigns have are huge.

Following our guest speakers, we led our attendees upstairs to our next installation of the Photo Exhibition. Our partner organization, Syncro Synergy from Croatia held a contest for photo/illustration submissions and the winner, Kristinka Lazar, was awarded a trip to Sarajevo to attend the Exhibition in person to showcase her work. She drew and painted an image of a dog and boy standing on top of rubble following the earthquake in Croatia.

We want to thank everyone for coming and we are honored to have been able to showcase the solidarity of volunteers in crisis situations.

Up next we have Karl Popper Debates scheduled in each partner country in May and we look forward to seeing all of you participate in your local communities and the winning teams from each country gather in Sarajevo in June for the final Karl Popper Debate championship round. 

Follow our various social media channels to find out how to get involved in your local communities: Website, Facebook, Instagram. 

#BRAVO #BRAVOBIH #MAKETHEWORLDWONDER #BRAVOVISOR #ONLYWHATYOUGIVEISYOURS #EuropeForCitizens

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The delegations of the project partners have spent two very informative and exciting days in the capital of Greece. We visited the homes for disabled people operated by the host organization. Following really strict COVID security measures, we were able to look around the facilities and even discuss with some of the residents. Surprisingly, they were very talkative and several of them spoke fluent English. We were able to get a little insight into the wonderful work IASIS is doing for these people. We also had the chance to visit the IASIS headquarters where we could see „where the magic happens”, beside the offices, we were also able to see their gym and other facilities. We were also given the opportunity to visit a wonderful initiative called Fabric Republic, which is a country-wide used clothes collection, selection, distribution and upcycling project. We were also able to visit their shop with all the wonderful upcycled products.

The focal point of the visit was the exhibition and conference. Following several personal testimonials from volunteers, we were able to see the photos collected from the international partners regarding volunteering activities. The delegation from Hungary is looking forward to the next activities of the project – local and international ones.

Follow our various social media channels to find out how to get involved in your local communities: Website, Facebook, Instagram. 

Remember, ONLY WHAT YOU GIVE IS YOURS.

#BRAVO #BRAVOBIH #MAKETHEWORLDWONDER #BRAVOVISOR #ONLYWHATYOUGIVEISYOURS #EuropeForCitizens