The Serbian member of EPA, Pomoc Deci organised a very
interesting event in Belgrade in the middle of September 2016 with participants
from Balkan countries, Albania, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro as well
as Northern Ireland. While the event had an early childhood focus, EPA was
offered the opportunity to give our views on parental involvement and child
participation with special focus on peace-building, as well as to hold a
totally interactive workshop on active European citizenship on school level.
This was also a great opportunity to pilot our ELICIT+ training material in an
exciting context, the Balkans.
The most interesting presentation of the event was by Prof.
Bojana Breneselovic from Belgrade University. The title of the conference was
borrowed from her, and she made us change lenses and see segregation from a
totally different angle. After listening to the presentation, you are likely to
have realised that the younger your child is, the more likely it is they go to
a segregated school. But to prove that, you need to understand what segregation
really means according to the Oxford English Dictionary ‘the action or state of
setting someone or something apart from others’.
