CCC, what is that?

Cross-Cultural Communication is an abbreviation for CCC, and this is exactly the reason for writing this blog.

So, it all started in Sarajevo at the end of July, when friends from Georgia and Abkhazia came to us. Now I can really say that they are friends, because we met with them again in Armenia in the capital Yerevan. Yes, believe it or not, we are in Yerevan.

However, we will make the first reference to the conference that took place in our capital.

The first days of our training / conference were with Sebastian, who referred us to the situation between Georgia and Abkhazia, and what was appropriate to talk to them and what to do.

We were amazed to hear what kind of system they were living in. Sebastian also told us where they came from, and sadness was felt in his voice as he spoke.

The rest of the days, the trainer was Vernon, the founder of Youth Banks.

Vernon as a coach is very talented, he strives to keep the attention of all participants and to make the training as interesting and interactive as possible, so it is a great honor to attend his workshops.

I will briefly describe you one day at the conference, the very beginning of the day began with our presentation, what we have done for the past 11 years as long as the Youth Bank exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We designed a play that was either a timeline of events, or as if we were traveling through time. Our little show appealed to everyone in attendance. Of course none of this would have been possible had it not been for a team selected from different YBs in BiH. Participants from Bosnia and Herzegovina are bulls from 6 YBs (Kostajnica, Novi Grad, Čelinac, Laktaši, Doboj and Bosanski Petrovac). After the presentation, 6 participants were selected, two from each country (Abkhazia, Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina) who would visit No escape room, and I was among the participants. To remind No escape room is one of the microbusinesses supported by the Mozaik Foundation. After successfully completing the tasks in the room, we returned to the hotel for workshops. On this occasion, Vernon showed how difficult it is to work under pressure, and how difficult it is to stay focused while people interfere with your private space. Specifically, it was a press conference he had prepared for us. The point of the exercise was to feel the weight of the pressure that we were in the room, and the participants who played the reporters, to see how difficult it was to get valid information and what all the information the media could put us. Our task was to describe in as much detail as possible what the room looked like, and the task of “journalists” to tell the story as authentically as possible.

If you read the blogs of other participants, you noticed that everyone describes how great the day that was on Neretva looked like. Of course, it was rafting on the emerald green, clear Neretva. It was my first time going rafting, so there was a little nervousness and adrenaline, but everything went well, we even had a half-raft barbecue, but then it started raining, trying to spoil our good mood and of course failed in that one. There was a lot of adrenaline in that part of the rafting, because it was very thundering, and it was all high trees and rocks, and plenty of water. We survived that day as well and moved on with the conference.

We also visited Tito's bunker on the same floor, which is very fascinating in itself and extends to 6,500 square meters and about 300 meters below ground.

The last day of the conference was spent writing projects with our friends from both Georgia and Abkhazia, which was one of the reasons for our visit to Armenia, where our fellowship continued. The project co-written by my colleague Mediha and I is called By peace, and we can boast that it will be implemented in October and November.

When it came time to go to Georgia, five of us were selected as members of Youth Banks (Maja, Nikolija, Ahmed, Nemanja, Mediha – as a project member and I), Sanja and Zeljko as representatives of the Mozaik Foundation, so we were 8 magnificent.

We spent one day in Georgia before leaving for Armenia, on this occasion we visited the old part of Tibilisi, which delighted us and at the same time fascinated us and left us a little in shock. How old are the buildings that are in the old town, and the stories of our guide, how old are the houses. There we also saw the smallest clock, on the clock tower.

Going to Armenia was full of challenges, we didn't hope it would last that long, unfortunately we didn't prepare for it. We were thirsty and hungry for a good part of the way, but we survived that too. After an exhaustive day, we decided to take a little stroll around Yerevan and see the beauties of fountains dancing. The scene is truly mesmerizing and captivating.

The first day of Vernon's training again, we agreed on the rules, and wrote down the expectations, both ours and Vernon's as a coach. As a coach, Vernon thrills us more and more every day. It teaches us teamwork, how to avoid conflict, respect diversity. During teamwork we made a super duck, Maja and me were so proud of us.

In addition, we went on a tour of projects implemented in Martui, so that small project ideas can lead to great success. We visited a tailor shop as well as a horse farm used for tourist purposes, and the farm started to work on just one horse. Sevan Lake, was a destination before the projects and is said to be known to the legend.

During the free time we had after the morning workshops, we decided to visit the Cascades, and to see all of Yerevan “in the palm of your hand,” what it was like to climb to the top you have on Ahmed's blog.

After all the activities, we came back to finish what we came for, to finish our project. Where we were told that the project was of high quality and deserved an opportunity for implementation. When we heard this information, we were very proud of our hard work and success of our idea.

And so our time spent in Georgia and Armenia has passed.