Best wishes to everyone, and may this Easter bring us the desire for reconciliation and lasting peace.
Thank you for your support and encouragement, which allows us to continue to improve this part of the world day after day.
Much love
The volunteers of For a better World
We were recently invited to the Caritas headquarters in Rijeka to receive thanks for the collaboration offered.
It was a nice opportunity to see the bishop again (who handed us the certificate) and many other friends and collaborators who work together with us every day to create “a better world”.
At the beginning of March we were invited to a large gathering of firement in Sunja, so we gladly decided to attend and visit a few more friends. We received a lot of praise and thankfulness for the mural we painted a few months on their tower. Here’s some pics from that evening, starting with our team, Andrea, Kris and I.
We of course checked our murals
And we met a lot of friends at the local bar Piccolo
We also visited some friends. Here with Filip’s parents. Remember the amazing video he produced a few years ago?
Nada welcomed us again at her place, and we took time to remember her sweet husband who just passed away
And here’s the original team, who met when the Civil March for Aleppo passed through Sunja exactly 7 years ago, in March 2017, and kept up friendship and cooperation with many projects: Jelica, Jasmina, Anna and Josip.
Here’s the Civil March for Aleppo, 7 years ago
Since there was going to be a presentation of the book Theresa helped write, with others of the NGO Balkanbrucke, another Meet Up happened almost spontaneously in Berlin! Michael and I met in Munich and picked up Rebin, whom we had met several times in Bosnia but didn’t see since 2 years, and Junus, similar story. How great to meet again in a new context! Not without its challenges but definitely more uphill and with the feeling of going somewhere.
Here’s the power bank Rebin used on his last game, and now he gave it to me to pass on to some other gamer in need👏
In Berlin, we were given a very warm welcome by the Adday’s family, in a Syrian restaurant. Actually, a very delicious and abundant welcome!
These Meet ups are time for relaxing, reconnecting, eating together, sharing stories, an event to present the Walk and talk about future plans. And play songs together! Thank you Israel for joining us with your beautiful music.
Here at Amloud’s home we had the pleasure to meet again Ashab, whom we had met in Velika Kladusa exacty 2 years ago, when he was still a minor staying in Miral camp.
What a nice young man he has become! Here’s something he wrote:
| 18.2.2022 Friday Bosnia
| 18.2.2024 Sunday Germany
(This text is dedicated to the people who gave me a new perspective, a new hope, courage to fight depression in difficult times and have been in touch with me for the past two years. Much love and heartfelt thanks.)
18 February 2022 is Friday
A young boy is lost in thought in the Miral refugee camp in Velika Kladuša, a small village in Bosnia.
What will happen to us in the future?
Oh God, when will we reach Italy?
If we remain here in Bosnia in such conditions, we will not be able to do anything in the future.
Such strange and strange questions were coming in his mind when suddenly a boy named Salman comes and tells him that today some people from Italy have come to meet me, I have to go to the city to meet them. You wanna join us?
Ashab: Who are those people? Why would they come here from Italy to meet you?
Salman: Man, they help the refugees, I have talked to them a little while ago on Messenger, they will reach the city at 1 or 2 o’clock in the afternoon.
Please come with me they are very nice people.
When we arrive in the center of Velika Kladuša, there are about 6 or 7 people who greet us enthusiastically. As the time for Friday prayer approaches, these nice peoples people know that these two Pakistani boys, Salman and Ashab, are Muslims, so they send us to pray in the mosque.
After that we go to a coffee shop.
[the picture below, our first meeting with Ashab and Salman in the bar]
Then we go to a small restaurant for lunch and spend about 2-3 hours there. Talking to this group from Italy, there was a distinct feeling of positive energy coming from them. There was a glimmer of hope that our life is still not that bad, it’s a different thing that Ashab you only have one pant, t-shirt and jacket and old shoes and your feet hurt because of these shoes. You have tried to enter Italy from Bosnia about 6 times but unfortunately every time you are beaten by the police and deported back. Among them, when a young man Rikko was talking to me, I felt like direct knowledge was being transferred to me.
At 16:30 me and Salman came back to Miral cam.
But….
Literally this 2- 3 hour meeting made me think.
They have come from Italy to visit us in Bosnia as a group, spending time and money, and they are also paying for our food here. But still all these people are happy.
Who does that in today’s age of materialism?
Who are these people?
What is the purpose of their life?
How are they so happy?
After much thought, I did some searching on Google and found that such people are called human rights activists and social workers.
Love for humanity and race without discrimination. Religion, trying to help everyone is the secret of their happiness.
At that time I also thought that one day I will become a human, rights + social + political activist, social worker, fight for people’s rights and help them. Just as these people met me and gave us a new hope, I will do the same.
And my journey begins in Braunschweig, Germany, where I would begin my political and activist life.
From Braunschweig’s schools, streets, local politics, Braunschweig Rathaus, state parliament, to the German parliament (Bundestag), I speak out for youth and human rights.
And there comes a time when I become vice president of several organizations like Migrantifa Braunschweig. I work as a volunteer with many refugee aid organizations. The boy, who was not known before, now his name appears in the newspapers.
Who had nothing, and today he has everything. He is fond of books; today he has more than 200 books, computer, iPad, many clothes, many shoes, bicycle, and many God given blessings.
I don’t know how the love, respect, development of so many people liked me happened in such a short time because I still don’t know German well.😂
All this is to tell you people that your small actions work. Trying to help can change lives with one’s thoughts. I don’t know how many people’s lives will be changed because of this one group Walk of Shame. I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. If today I am living happily in Germany or have achieved so much, then surely you guys have played a big role in it.😇
Two years ago, in Bosnia. The meeting Ashab talks about:
Another Christmas…let’s fill these bags with gifts from the heart!
Here’s the bags as they are being made. Sooner or later everyone will get one.
Humanity is a large and immense family… We find proof of this in what we feel in our hearts at Christmas. Pope John XXIII
But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round…as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.
Charles Dickens
Better World Croatia / Per un mondo migliore 