APC/CZA has been working for years to connect the youth from local areas where refugees reside – pupils, students, activists – and refugees themselves because we believe it is very important to create opportunities to meet, to exchange experiences and opinions, to overcome unknowns, to face prejudices. Acquainting children and young people with asylum stories, meeting peers who come from other communities creates new experiences for kids, develops empathy in children, encourages them to show solidarity.

One of the examples is the connection between the students of VI Belgrade Grammar School and the refugee children from Afghanistan, which we achieved. After a joint meeting workshop at APC/CZA, under the impression that a boy and a girl from Afghanistan speak Serbian, how they try to get to know Belgrade, to understand local pop culture, to have the same desires as their peers from Serbia, two high schoolers from Belgrade filmed short film. They visited their favorite places in Belgrade together, spent some free time together.

Together, we motivated two children from Afghanistan to submit their drawings to the “Welcome to my country” invitation organized by UNHCR Serbia, Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, the Delegation of the European Union in the Republic of Serbia and the Sixth Belgrade Grammar School.

A girl from Afghanistan won the first prize in the refugee children’s competition.

This is the beginning of a wonderful friendship and welcoming for refugee children, whom we will help and encourage as before.

Watch the video from the award ceremony