Suncokret

Many of the persons who fled or were expelled from Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war first found refuge in other countries of former Yugoslavia, and also in these countries there have been many support and solidarity initiatives.

One example is the NGO “Suncokret – Centre for Grassroots Relief” which was created in 1992 in Zagreb by a group of young people, mainly students, in response to the huge number of refugees in Croatia. Suncokret ( = sunflower) gathered volunteers from Croatia and many other countries into teams that were sent to refugee camps, mainly in Croatia, but also in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their main task was to provide psycho-social assistance and to organize social life in the camps ; the teams of volunteers organized regular activities such as creative work and excursions with children, libraries and language classes for teenagers or handicraft workshops and self-help groups for women. In 1995, Suncokret  worked in 20 collective centres with approx. 15.000 refugees. It is estimated that around 2.000 foreign volunteers participated in Suncokret activities during the war.

The slogan on the poster says that working with refugee children will enable them to “make a turn towards the sun through a night of war experiences”.