Good Friday

20 years after the war, 11541 chairs for each of the citizens killed in Sarajevo during the siege. So moving. (How might a tribute in Mostar have looked?)

Informal settlements

Cities use illegal ghettos to retain control of prime real estate.

Residents of illegal settlements in constant danger of eviction

Sefa Hajrusi, 34 and a father of two, is one of 15 families who will receive housing in 2012 through a project sponsored by Mostar city administration, Swiss Caritas and the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees (MHRR).

Kathryn Hampton (AbrašMEDIA)

However, he already has a house, one which he built himself several years ago on land owned by the city. There are about 50 other families, also squatters, who have homes in the Hajrusis’ neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, the land parcel to be used for the housing project is home to another large com-munity of squatters in improvised dwellings.

The city takes no responsibility for providing services to the residents, most of whom are without running water or electricity, and on occasion enforces its right to evict the residents, as did Mostar city administration in 2010, when it evicted approximately 40 families for the storage needs of the public road service. None of the families were provided with alternative accommodation or land.

(continued... http://abrasmedia.info/english/english/residents-illegal-settlements-constant-danger-eviction)

Where has RTV Mostar gone?

RTV Mostar, a local TV station where I worked for several months as a video editor in 2010, has completely disappeared without a word... During my time there, a close partnership with new, commercial news station TV1 had begun in earnest, with constant exchanges of staff and programming. RTVMo gradually lost many main staff members to the Sarajevo TV1 studio and its daily news report was substituted by the TV1 news anchors, however, RTV Mostar retained its own channel and flagship program "Grad" ("City"), a 6 pm, much-watched talk show covering current events in Mostar.

Many employees, including almost all the people I worked with, who were longtime employees of RTVMo, have been fired. Only a few remain in the studio, where they occasionally file "Mostar" stories to the main TV1 studio. The Mostar regulatory agency says that the disappearance of RTVMo is due to technical difficulties.

RTV Mostar, which broadcast throughout the war, and after the war remained the only multi-ethnic TV station in Herzegovina, has vanished without a trace, without a word of explanation.


http://www.starmo.ba/mostars/item/4316-gdje-je-nestao-tv-mostar?.html

Shelter at Abrasevic

OKC Abrasevic has turned temporarily into a drop-in shelter due to the harsh weather conditions in Mostar, where there are electricity shortages in many neighborhoods, meaning no heating for many families, in sub-zero temperatures.

Families with children and students whose dorms had no heating came to take shelter in Abrasevic, about 50 people in all, seven of them children. About 20 people stayed overnight at OKC.

Abrasevic provided their space, free teas, and heating with gas heaters. Red Cross brought some blankets and camping mattresses, Club Alekse donated hot meals, and individuals also lent their sleeping bags, blankets and clothes.


Articles:


http://mostarlife.com/u-prihvatnom-centru-abra%C5%A1evi%C4%87a-%C4%8Detrdeset-ljudi-ve%C4%87ina-djece

http://www.radiosarajevo.ba/novost/73731

Hope Thru Art

Listen to a podcast with Hope Thru Art, an organization that creates art with and for the homeless.

No time to say goodbye

A major European issue is the exportation of Roma, most recently from from France and also from Germany. This issue has come to Bosnia-Herzegovina as well, now that the situation in Kosovo has calmed down, Roma from Kosovo, who have lived in BH for over 10 years, are now being returned. It hits young people the hardest-- having to leave basically the only home they ever knew. Now they have Serbian passports and can come to visit, can even travel to European countries, but they have to finish school, find jobs and make a new life for themselves in Serbia. Some young people from our church have had to return to Serbia and a youth worker from Mostar wrote a song, recorded it, and made this music video with them...

Abras MEDIA

AbrasMEDIA, socially engaged media, is an independent youth media housed in OKC Abrasevic, with its own internet radio, TV show (in cooperation with local tv station RTV Mostar and the US embassy) and Youtube channel. Funders past and present include the Czech embassy in Sarajevo and the National Endowment for Democracy.

Click here to read articles from AbrasMEDIA translated into English