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Our French volunteer Leila Slimane, who went to Bosnia and Herzegovina within our ESC Humanitarian Aid project “HAND”, funded by the European Commission and hosted by our Bosnian partner, Bosnian Representative Association for Valuable Opportunities (BRAVO), completed her 1-year long volunteering service in Sarajevo.
Leila was deployed to serve her volunteering in the Temporary Reception Centers (TRCs) for migrants and refugees located in Sarajevo. Occasionally she also volunteered at an elderly center. Other activities involved participating in some Youth Exchanges co-organized by BRAVO and hosted in Sarajevo.
Her work at the TRCs involved a lot of translation and communicating information in Arabic or French to the beneficiaries. She was assigned to work the registration desk. While the registration officer was inputting the personal data for each new coming beneficiary in the computer system, she was explaining to them the times for meals and clothing/hygiene supplies distributions; asking them to sign the registration papers, and translating the questions they might have.
Leila often worked at the warehouse where the non-food items were stored. She prepared welcome packages (clothes, hygiene products and a blanket) that were being distributed to every migrant when they first arrived. She also helped with the distribution of these welcome packages.
She also took part in the WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) activities in the camp. Every day the accommodation units had to be cleaned, so Leila and the other volunteers had to bring the cleaning materials (brooms, dustpans, trash bags) to the accommodation units and make sure that the beneficiaries clean their space. Also every day new people come and others leave, so they had to collect the blankets left by the beneficiaries who left the TRC, in order to take them to the washing and redistribute them later.
She sometimes sat in the social corner of the TRC to participate in the workshops, help with translation or just to casually chit-chat with the migrants and listen to what they wanted to share about their journey and their struggles.
Leila and the other volunteers also took part in re-organizing the warehouse. This action was taking around 10 days. The shelves were rearranged in order to optimize the space available and ensure a safe and efficient storing of goods. Under the supervision of the warehouse coordinator they also carried out the semi-annual inventory and physically counted every item in stock.
Leila was involved in some activities of the Mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) team in Ušivak TRC. In particular, she co-facilitated a workshop on coping skills. The aim of this workshop was to equip the residents of the TRC with practical coping mechanisms for stress management, resilience-building, and mental well-being. A “happy wall” was created, showcasing photos taken during the workshop with instant photography cameras. The coping skills workshop integrated the benefits of instant photography to help participants reconnect with positive memories and cultivate resilience.
She spent sometime in the community kitchen, which was a space managed by an organization called JRS (Jesuit Refugee Service). Beneficiaries were provided with three meals a day by IOM but they had the possibility to use the community kitchen to cook their own food. The beneficiaries felt welcomed and were always proud to share the cuisine from their countries.
She assisted with Arabic and French translation in the No Nation Fashion atelier in Ušivak TRC, which is a place where every beneficiary could contribute by designing a garment and adding it to the collection. Professional sewing machines were made available to the beneficiaries, they can design and sew clothes from scratch or just fix their own clothes.
Leila occasionally volunteered at the elderly center “Zdravo” which is a day care center for senior citizens that offers various indoor and outdoor activities and workshops such as knitting, sewing, embroidery, painting, decoupage, cooking, gardening, fitness class, chess, dominos, etc.
She also participated in several EU activities and Youth Exchanges that BRAVO hosted as a co-partner organization.
With her humanitarian aid activity, Leila was able to use her language skills and got more proficient with face-to-face interpreting and the difficulty of this work in such a context. She also learned that cultural mediation is an integral part of the interpreters’ job. She learned every day how to handle human situations with tact, moderation, responsibility and empathy. What she liked the most about the work was the casual chitchats that she had with the migrants and listening to their stories. She felt very safe around them and she liked the friendliness and positivity they displayed despite all they had gone through. After a year of working with refugees, she felt how draining it was to work in the social/humanitarian field. She realized that it requires a lot of strength to be able to cope with being exposed to human misery.
We would like to thank Leila, especially in the TRCs, for making it easier for migrants to cope with their difficulties, ensuring that they do not feel alone, and demonstrating good practices in the field of humanitarian aid.
