by Robin Ujfalusi

14 April 2009

Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Around 70 enthusiastic young people of 20 nationalities, working and debating tirelessly during the day and enjoying evenings together. That was the Mostar International Model United Nations (MOSTIMUN) in a nutshell, one of the first ever university events of this kind in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However, in the beginning, it did not look that optimistic. As a consequence of the 1990s conflict, Mostar is still a divided city, though there is cooperation between the Croatian and Bosniak communities. In October, when Victoire Rio came to Mostar and announced her intention to organize MOSTIMUN with students and universities from both parts of the city, the feedback was rather negative.

“They thought it is simply impossible here,” recalls Ms. Rio. Fortunately, they were not right.

Victoire Rio did not give up and managed to get together a team of local students who organized the event. Marija Prskalo, one of the most committed organizers, describes their motivation: “A lot of people still think the town is at war. We wanted to show people from all around the world that we live quite normal lives and young people here face similar problems, just like everywhere else.”

Their effort bore fruit. There followed four days of negotiations where participants - approximately half of them from Mostar - represented the national delegations of other countries. In three councils, they discussed the problems facing Balkan countries in particular as well as the global community as a whole: the status of internally displaced people, the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the unemployment rate in the Western Balkans and so on.

“The most valuable experience is to represent a country which is not yours and advocate a position you do not agree with. It is challenging and I love it,” concluded Dzanan Gvozden from Mostar, who represented Russia in the model UN Security Council.   

Participants from abroad were similarly excited. Tanya Podobinska from Ukraine, representing the USA at the conference, stressed the element of mutual understanding: “Many foreign people still do not know what happened here, and this event puts Mostar on the map. It brings awareness and better understanding of the international community, and at the same time, it brings people from different sides of the town together.”

The UN country team in Bosnia and Herzegovina was more than happy to fully support such an event. UNV Bosnia Programme Officer Stephanie Roels delivered a speech during the opening ceremony, stressing that volunteerism is a much broader concept than we usually think. She pointed out that even this event was a great result of volunteer contribution.

Aside from this, the UNV team organized a roundtable and thus opened another lively discussion about volunteer opportunities at different levels.  

As Ms. Roels put it in her speech: “Volunteering is about helping another as much as it is about developing your own skills. It is about meeting new people and acquiring new ideas. It is about those things you will not get when you do not explore, when you do not go beyond your daily tasks and when you only drink coffee. Volunteering is often about going off the beaten track. It is adventure!”

After the experience of MOSTIMUN 2009, Victoire Rio and her team would certainly confirm these words. A few months ago they heard that their mission was impossible. They have managed to disprove it and now have a team of extremely motivated young people who kept thinking - even during the most busy days of the last week - how to make MOSTIMUN 2010 better and more memorable event.