During the implementation of the project we focused our ideas in one message that we repeated over and over again to the representatives of the media, organizations and institutions of culture, education, and government, political organizations, NGOs, Roma and other associations, journalists, artists, cultural workers, influential people, pedagogues, colleagues and others:

Roma people are not a temporary or occasional “problem” of the society, nor an exotic jewel to be shown from time to time at cultural festivals. Roma are a permanent, natural and integral part of the society, and as such, all the Roma problems are at the same time the problems of the overall society. In the same way, all the problems of the society are the problems of the Roma population. Therefore these problems can be resolved only throught the work on the structural and sustainable changes in all the segments of the society, and by the joined efforts of the Roma and non-Roma population.

This statement was quoted often in the press, and we have sent that message many times through the TV and Radio broadcast programs that we participated in.

We will continue to work with these issues in future. For now, you can read more about th project “Cerain” on this website.

We had a great time in Banja Luka. Our children were wonderful, and we all learned a lot from each other! We are exhausted, but proud of what we achieved this summer.

Detailed reports from Novi Sad and Banja Luka are coming soon!

Our summer school has moved to Banja Luka. We have 15 Roma kids from Prnjavor and Derventa. It is exciting, beautiful and inspiring to work with them! We don’t have time to update our website, but expect some great stories and pictures very soon! We are busy with our children until Friday 29th August. More news after that!

We successfully finished our project in Novi Sad. And, yes indeed we enjoyed working on it very much. We had a steady group who attended the whole course and a few children who were coming for a day or two. Our steady group counted about 15 kids and it became a really close group during this last week. There were kids aged from 10 up to 19 years. Roma kids and non-Roma kids together. Neither the age nor ethnicity was the obstacle for our students to have a good, quality time together.

Our program was received well and all of us, both kids and teachers are very satisfied with the results of this summer school we offered to the kids in Novi Sad.

Let’s hope we are going to have the same experience in Banja Luka where we are going to start tomorrow.

With Novi Sad in our minds we are going to be greatly motivated for our work in Banja Luka.

More details about our work in Novi Sad are coming soon…

Novi Sad 17 – 24 August: Detailed program (in Serbian)
Detaljan program radionica, predavanja i aktivnosti za Novi Sad 17 – 24 August (klikni na link)

Download PDF:

(klikni na sliku za download)

Time is flying fast – our Summer school is starting on Monday, only 4 days from today! It’s exciting, and we are little bit nervous, but looking forward to working with children.

One of the remaining tasks was to visit the Small stage of Youth Theater in Novi Sad, and fix all the technical details. We met Hadzi-Zoran Lazin, Technical Director of Youth Theater in Novi Sad. Mr Lazin is a very open and cooperative professional characterized by true human engagement and enthusiasm. He showed us the Small stage – a beautiful cozy theater equipped with all technical gadgets we need: movie screen, projector, sound system, comfortable seats, nice stage, – even an air conditioning system – and that is very important here in Novi Sad when it is hit by Sahara-like summer heatwave.

We agreed about all the details. Mr Lazin promissed that he’ll appoint a technician to help us during our programs in Youth Theater. I have a feeling that we’re going to love working here!

We are meeting lots of very talented Roma children musicians during our trip through the area around Novi Sad. So we decided to start making some short simple movies about them. We will start publishing the movies as soon we have some time for editing.

But in the meantime, listen to this recording made in a restaurant near by the river Danube, a couple of kilometers from Novi Sad. The sound recording is made by a very simple DV camera. You can hear this small Roma “tamburica” orchestra (5 man band), and solos by 16 years old Stevan Familic, and his grandfather, also Stevan Familic. Don’t be confused by names.. Just listen and enjoy the bottleneck tambourica “battle” between the grandfather and his grandson!

We guested on the 30 minutes TV show “Romologija”, on channel TV Vojvodina 2 in Novi Sad, host: Pera Nikolic, a journalist and the head of the editorial board of Roma broadcasting board. Nevena Bajalica, Jovica Nikolic and Misko Stanisic speaks about the Summer school for Roma children “Cerain” in Novi Sad.

part 1:

part 2:

part 3:

Today we visited the Music School “Isidor Bajic” in Novi Sad. We viewed the school premises and agreed that it would be a perfect place for some of our workshops.

The schoolyard is a nice green park with benches in the shade of dense branches of trees. It could be a nice place for our pupils to rest and have a sandwich between the lectures .

Music School in Novi Sad is 100 years old! It was founded in 1909 by Isidor Bajic.

Isidor Bajic (August 16, 1878 – September 15, 1915) was a Serbian composer, pedagogue, and publisher. A studentl of H. Koesller in Budapest, he taught at the Novi Sad High School, where he founded a music school and initiated the publication of the Serbian Music Magazine and the Serbian Music Library (an edition of Serbian compositions). He died at Novi Sad, only 37 years old. His most important work is a romantic national opera Knez Ivo od Semberije (Prince Ivo of Semberia), based on Serbian folklore music.

Youth Theater (Pozorište mladih) is a theatre in Novi Sad. Youth Theater has two stages: the children’s stage and the evening stage.

We met Dr Zoran Djeric, the manager of Youth Theater, in his office in Novi Sad. We presented our project to him and asked about the possibility of using the Youth Theater premises for some parts of our program. We would like to hold the press conference in Youth Theater, as well as to use the premises for some of the workshops. Youth Theater is just about to be renovated, and the works will start very soon, but Zoran Djeric promised us that we will be able to use the premises – one way or another.

Zoran Djeric presented the work of Youth Theater. It includes the oldest Puppet Theater in the Balkans. And the drama theatre is working mainly with avant-gard writers performing plays for young audience. Zoran Djeric is also a professor at Art Academy at Banja Luka University – so we are going to meet him even during our summer school program in Banja Luka! Nice!

The Puppet Theater, held in September 1931, was the first play performed in Youth Theater. Youth Theater was closed during World War II. Afterwards, it reopened under the new name of “Vojvodinian Puppet Theater”. Unfortunately, the circumstances were difficult because the large number of puppets and equipment had been lost or stolen during the war. However, the Serbian National Theater provided its support to help revive the company. Soon after, the theatre changed its name to “City Puppet Theater”. From 1952 to 1968, it was simply called “Puppet Theater”. In November 1968, its name changed again, this time to Youth Theater, which has remained since.