WBAA projects 2019- Round I selected projects
We are happy to present to you the projects that were selected in the first round of applications. We want to thank all the applicants for their great and inspiring project proposals. We received several great applications and are able to support 18 projects in this first round. Here you will find a short overview of all projects that were accepted. Some of the projects will be realised on regional level and others on national or local level.
Please check out the different projects below. If you come upon one you find especially interesting and would like to connect or collaborate with the project, feel free to contact the project manager. We wish all the project implementors best of luck and success with their projects.
Round I Selected Projects
Regional
Future Western Balkans Entrepreneurs (WBAApreneurs)
Western Balkans region, the region full of diversity, the region of delicious food and friendly people, a great history but as well the region with high unemployment rates and a trend of brain drain. We invite motivated WBAA members from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, interested in acquiring some entrepreneurial skills and to whom changes in society and cross-border collaborations present lifestyle, to apply to this project and to be part of a group that will meet in July this year in Belgrade. Beside the two-day training on entrepreneurship, which will be the main topic of this event, 5 participants from each of the listed countries will have the opportunity for networking and cultural exchange through the series of creative activities. Additionally, participants will have the opportunity to feel the summer weather in Belgrade, join a Belgrade city culture tour and take part in some networking sport and recreational activities.
Project Manager: Milan Stojanovic milan87stojanovic@gmail.com
Creating sustainable transfer of knowledge for building novel ideas for critical environmental issues in the Western Balkan countries
The project involves networking of students and scientific researchers from Western Balkan countries for creating dataset base of the latest chemo-metric approaches for environmental pollution/protection and ecological effects as well. Even the environmental pollution is a global problem, the latest research indicate that the Western Balkan countries are significantly affect with the environmental pollution. Furthermore, the Western Balkan countries still deals with the problem of poor population awareness for environmental protection. Therefore, this project idea is to unite the knowledge from Western Balkan countries and share with youth from this region, increasing the environmental protection awareness within students. Therefore, the students will have the main role in lunching the environmentally friendly aspects for creating novel chemo-metric models in environmental sciences. The beneficiary effect for the Western Balkan students will be creating long-term valuable and sustainable correlations. It´s a 2-day event.
Project manager: Kiril Jordanov kiriljordanov1989@gmail.com
Training sessions in communication development and WBAA promotion
This project aims to increase the networking and communication amongst Western Balkan Alumni and promote the association broadly. Through the project, we intend to organize training sessions and workshops on planning strategies and skills development in communication and WBAA Promotion. We plan to organize an event in North Macedonia with a regional participation, during which we will focus on capacity building and develop a detailed strategy and communication plan for WBAA. It is a 2-day training.
Project manager: Jonida Mersinllari jonida.mersinllari@gmail.com
Learning and encouraging students from technical sciences to participate in European exchange programs
Programs like Erasmus +, Maria Sklodowska‐Curie are still unknown for a large percentage of students in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Lectures and workshops that are organised are mainly intended for employees in higher education institutions and then, they try to motivate students to participate in these projects. There is, however, still a significant increase in the number of teaching staff exchanges within European programs compared to the number of students participating in exchanges. The goal of this project is to gather students and staff from Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the region (Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia...) who have been part of the education in exchange programs. The purpose of the gathering is to convey their experiences and to encourage students who have not had such experiences to take part in these programs. Since the workshop organiser would be the Faculty of Technology of the University of Banja Luka, the target group would be students of technical sciences from the country and the region. 2days workshop
Project manager: Borislav Malinovic borislav.malinovic@tf.unibl.org
The magic of creating successful project proposals
The idea is to gather as a group of diverse (WBAA, research/projects/...) team members, to receive (1) a project proposal application training that will result with members obtaining knowledge in proposal writing through main theoretical guidelines and (2) a working example of project application that will be used as actual application for funding in near future - e.g. the Macro study, the tracer sub-applications, the one-stop-shop platform for international mobility, etc. It is planned as a two-day workshop. The workflow would allow members to go through selection of specific (external to WBAA) funding actions (e.g. COST, Visegrad+, E+, …), selection of external training provider to combine with WBAA coordinators for working out the example and training curriculum and realise the workshop. In addition, a live streaming for the ones who cannot be present in person, and attempt for professional video recording of the training (in the form of tutorial to be made available to other WBAA members for future dissemination and reference) will be organised. The event also includes a sustainability aspect of the organizational knowledge competence since some of the participating members would be appointed as contact persons and future tutors for expansion and knowledge dissemination within WBAA.
Project manager: Renata Petrevska Renata.PetrevskaNechkoska@UGent.be
National
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Run for Erasmus
On Sunday, 6th of October 2019, students from across the EU, Balkans and Bosnia and Herzegovina will meet for their first of a kind, Run4Erasmus 5K race. The race will take place in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is expected to attract current Erasmus+ students, Erasmus+ alumni and those interested in studying abroad as well as other youth who might be looking for something fun and refreshing on their Sunday morning. This race promotes a healthy lifestyle and highlights the importance of being active amongst the youngsters, while also introducing them to the possibilities of academic and cultural exchanges offered by the Erasmus+ program. This race will also promote the new Erasmus+ actions that will be introduced with the upcoming 2021-2027 budget. New Erasmus actions give an opportunity for young athletes and sport coaches to participate in mobility schemes. This is especially important in the Western Balkans, where this program would tackle cross-border violence between different fan groups, as well as intolerance, discrimination and racism. Bosnian sport associations have not used the current funds of the Sport Chapter in the Erasmus+ Programme mostly due to lack of information and lack of capacities to write project proposals.
Project manager: Azra Muftic akimuftic@gmail.com
Soft me up
The overall project objective is to equip members of WBAA with soft skills (communication, leadership, public speaking, PR, marketing and organisational skills) and the basics of entrepreneurship that will help them in their future employment. In the fast-growing economy and fiercer competition, it’s vital to have soft skills to make you more desirable on the labour market. Also, one of the objectives is to create a start-up from their newly acquired skills. In order for this project to have sustainability and for participants to use their newly acquired skills we plan for them to develop start-up by using soft skills and basic of entrepreneurship and to develop the start-up into something more durable, with the help of trainers.
Project manager: Hida Kurtic hida.kurtic@gmail.com
ŽIVI(nice) Erasmus
The goal of the project we called ŽIVI(nice) Erasmus* is to promote EU funded opportunities, Erasmus+ and similar exchange programs to youth and general population in a city Živinice and the surrounding region where such exchanges are not promoted as needed during a weekend of activities in July 2019. Activities for the locals will involve info sessions, workshops, live library and movie projection on 20th and 21th July 2019. ŽIVI(nice) Erasmus - the name of a city is Živinice and we wanted to play with it and make a catchy name of a project živi on Bosnian means to live - and the rest of the letters than form an English word nice - so on English it would mean live nice Erasmus - in one way it represents the mix of language you use when you go on Erasmus you use English to promote your culture and it happens that after you return from Erasmus you use both language when speaking with friends and family without even realising.
Project manager: Leila Lizde leila_lizde@hotmail.com
Exhibition plus –
University of Sarajevo (UNSA) will implement the project of collecting stories/testimonials in form of photographs of BH students abroad, create the gallery of photographs and organize exhibitions across several cities in BiH. This will be opportunity to promote outgoing mobility within Erasmus+ through given exhibition, testimonials and workshops.
Project manager: Adnan Rahimic adnan.rahimic@gmail.com
Serbia
Erasmus+ Ambassadors – Empowering Erasmus+ Alumni
Project “Erasmus+ Ambassadors - Empowering Erasmus+ Alumni” is a two day event that will take place in September in Belgrade, Serbia and will gather 60 Erasmus+ Alumni (WBAA members and future WBAA members) with the purpose of educating them about personal, academic and professional benefits of mobility and empowering them to promote Erasmus+ programme to their peers and colleagues. As an outcome of the event we will have 5 project proposals for promoting Erasmus+ that could later on be developed as WBAA project. Additionally, in order to raise awareness about the benefits of mobility and increase the popularity of the Erasmus+ programme in our region we will create a promotional video “Erasmus+ makes you more successful!”.
Project manager: Bojana Zimonjic zimonjic.bojana@gmail.com
Internationalisation and Mobility Conference
As opportunities for an international educational experience surge, it is important to make sure that certain changes are made in order to facilitate and improve the process. This project will be aimed at the development of education internationalisation in Serbia and, by extent, in the region. Thorough research has been conducted in cooperation with the HERE team (Higher Education Reform Experts team) and its results have revealed the most frequent problems in mobility faced by incoming students coming to Serbia. Our idea is to use this research, then collect and make a selection of papers dealing with the same topic. The collection of papers would then be adapted and made widely accessible by translating it into English. Furthermore, the project would be a chance for WBAA members in Serbia to work together and make a contribution to the overall research on the internationalisation of education. 2-day training
Project manager: Maksim Karanović maksim.karanovic@gmail.com
Innovative Startups – Brain gain, not brain drain
The main goal of the project is to transfer basic knowledge and skills to members of WBAA and other alumni in the field of entrepreneurship. The project proposal was created after analysing needs of the WBAA members who, after returning from studies abroad, are motivated to learn how to start their business. They would like to have the opportunity to apply innovative ideas, new perspectives and knowledge acquired in the EU. Most of them are creative, proactive and educated young people. However, they often have a problem finding a suitable job in their own countries. This is one of the reasons why the high percentage of young and educated people decide to leave the region (Brain Drain). The project aims to provide alumni with the necessary information and good practice in starting their own business. In this way the project would contribute to the development of their country and the Western Balkans region at all (Brain Gain).The planned project activities will, in addition to preparatory organizational activities, include: organisation of two day entrepreneurship workshops for WBAA members and potential WBAA members from Novi Sad, as well as the creation of partnerships of alumni (networking). Participants will have the opportunity to exchange experiences and to develop and strengthen future cooperation in the field of business start-ups. Media promotion of project activities and project's results would be disseminated through social networks and on relevant web portals. The direct target group of the project are members of WBAA from Novi Sad and other alumni who consider starting up their own business and those who would like to gain knowledge and skills in the field of entrepreneurship.
Training material and tutorial will be in English language and uploaded to the WBAA website, sin that way available to all members of WBAA. Indirectly, the training will be beneficial to the general public in this region. The timeline for the implementation of the project proposal is September - October 2019.
Project manager: Vesna Travica vesna.travica.bg@gmail.com
Photography exhibit No borders generation
The photography exhibit No borders generation aims to present and promote young people who have been a part of Erasmus mobility programs, Serbian students and foreign students alike. The exhibit will present about 25 photographs of students accompanied by quotes from interviews with them where they explain how Erasmus has changed the way they think and what impact it has on their lives and most importantly, what skills useful for their career they learned on Erasmus. The photographs will be taken by a photographer-volunteer. The organization is carried out by WBAA members in collaboration with the Alumni organization of the Faculty of philology. The most important goal of this project is to fight prejudice and build bridges, and we believe that the medium of photography is ideal as it can communicate the message of intercultural exchange to people of different nationalities and languages. No borders generation will not only present students who have taken part in exchange programs but will also hopefully inspire others to be more open and to think about applying for Erasmus themselves.
Project manager: Jovana Milovanovic jovana-m@hotmail.com
Let’s Talk about Internationalisation
As opportunities for an international educational experience surge, it is important to make sure that certain changes are made in order to facilitate and improve the process. This project will be aimed at the development of education internationalisation in Serbia and, by extent, in the region. Thorough research has been conducted in cooperation with the HERE team (Higher Education Reform Experts team) and its results have revealed the most frequent problems in mobility faced by incoming students coming to Serbia. Our idea is to use this research, then collect and make a selection of papers dealing with the same topic. The collection of papers would then be adapted and made widely accessible by translating it into English. Furthermore, the project would be a chance for WBAA members in Serbia to work together and make a contribution to the overall research on the internationalization of education. Plus promotional event.
Project manager: Nataša Janković natasa-j@live.com
Kosovo
Include to diversity
This project aims to provide a one-day training in two locations in Kosovo, in Prishtina and in Prizren. The training will be focused on inclusion and diversity, in two levels both awareness increasing and skills enriching. The need for this type of training has been present for a long period in Kosovo, nonetheless due to other social problems in the country, it has not been the focus of a structured strategy especially from the central governing bodies. The idea behind the training is to equip the trainees with the skills and the knowledge about inclusion issues, diversity and involvement in community, so that they are well-prepared to handle issues in their future job or situations which require delicate handling. The trainings will be held in two cities, in order to cover as much as possible participants from diverse regions of the country. Each training will have at most 30 participants. Participants will have to apply online and they will be selected based on the previously set criteria and the biggest needs of the candidate. The main aim of the training is to deliver a group of young people who have the awareness and the skills about the importance of diversity, inclusion and involvement in the community, and as such contribute directly themselves in the near future.
Project manager: Artë Retkoceri artaretkoceri@hotmail.com
Bridging the gap between academia and industry through industrial boards and updated curricula
This project proposal aims to help targeted stakeholders to bridge the gap that exist between academia and industry. The motivating idea is to gathered representatives from the Ministry of Education, Higher Educational Institutions and representatives of private companies and organizations, so that they all together can discuss and come up with concrete steps on how to collaborate in order to help each other. Hence, throughout this project proposal, all stakeholders will benefit. Universities will have updated curricula based on the feedback from the industry and in this way will have students more prepared for the job market at an early stage. The private companies and organizations, on the other hand, will be able to recruit junior workforce that is prepared for the job market. This present a successful scenario that would further strengthen the higher education quality.
Project manager: Adelina Basholli adelina.basholli@gmail.com
North Macedonia
Internship fair
The main idea of the project is to build network between the students and the local companies in order to give them the chance to have more professional and long-term internship related to their field of studies. It will be a one-day event where will be invited the local companies and students where they can meet more closely and sign contract for conducting internships in the respective companies. Due to the limited number of spots the rest of the students can leave their CVs for further contact if needed. Additional activity related to the event will be a short presentation on how to create a good CV.
Project manager: Martin Trajkovski trajkovskipp@gmail.com
Social entrepreneurship through the prism of Erasmus +
The importance of social entrepreneurship is of great importance for maintaining ethics and empathy in the process of planning our business, and thus creating a comfortable ambience in the everyday space in which the business activities are carried out. This project is actually a two-day training, with a structured informal approach to education that will give a clear picture of social entrepreneurship with an overview of the meaning of creative ideas. This topic will open the horizons of the participants and attendees to think with an entrepreneurial spirit, taking into consideration the experiences and contacts received through the Erasmus + Exchange and in the formal process. The target group of the project are young people from the Republic of Northern Macedonia who are in the process of completing their higher education or young people who have just graduated with a degree of higher education. These are individuals who can very well fit into the topic and use this knowledge in the process of tracing their own business life.
Project manager: Aleksandar Davkov aleksandar@davka.com.mk
Cologne, 7th October 2019