KU GlobalAid’s primary objective of this year’s project is to arrange a stand-in Sarajevo which will be open three months long between June 8th and September 10th for the sale of the goods produced by various poor families determined by the project partners from Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a result, the goods produced by these poor families would be able to be introduced to numerous tourists coming both from Türkiye and the rest of the world.

As tourists buy some embroidery, handmade materials, and jam, they would have the chance to leave the country with concrete and meaningful memories while at the same time contribute to the aid program of KUGlobalAid.

We are organizing a launching event at Yunus Emre Turkish Culture Center on June 7 at 5 pm to promote the stand sale.

Bosnia & Herzegovina

The country is a homeland to three ethnic “constituent peoples”: Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats. Regardless of ethnicity, a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina is usually identified in English as a Bosnian.

Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the south, Bosnia and Herzegovina are almost entirely landlocked, except for 20 km of the Adriatic Sea coastline, centered around the town of Neum. The interior of the country is heavily mountainous and divided by various rivers, most of which are unnavigable. The nation’s capital and largest city is Sarajevo.

Formerly one of the six federal units constituting the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina gained its independence during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. The country is decentralized and is administratively divided into two “entities”, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska. More recently the country has acquired many central institutions (such as the ministry of defense, state court, etc.) as it takes the jurisdiction back from its entities. Currently, the unemployment rate in Bosnia is 28%.

Peace and War Activities

In the context of peace and war, Bosnia team made several activities. The aim was to make people think about the state of war while drawing attention to Bosnia. In order to do this, the team showed a video during the day under the name “Peace and War” in the Koç University Student Center on Tuesday, March 5th. The team also made a movie screening about the Bosnian War. The purpose it all aimed at was to just stop for a second and maybe not succeed but at least try to understand what our lives would be like if we were not in the state of peace.