Superar summer school in Srebrenica: Music connects Serbian and Bosnian children

Fond pre MVO

Superar choirs combine children from various backgrounds. The first Slovak choir endorsed by NOS-OSF sent several of their children-members to the summer Superar school in Srebrenica. Today, a choir merging Muslim and Serbian children operates in the place where Bosnian Muslims were once murdered by Serbian troops. Domestic choir hosted children from Slovakia, Austria, Romania, from various cultures and social groups.

This strong experience of overcoming barriers by music has been described in BBC report, too. Austrian patron of Superar network, Doraja Eberle, recollects her memories of people coming together step by step in a place of former massacre: „When we first started with our summer school, Serbian parents were on the left hand side and Bosnians were on the right hand side. Then someone says: Let us put a coffee maker in the middle – everybody likes drinking coffee and smoking. And that was all it took – a coffee maker and an ash tray,“ she smiles and adds: „For the first time, Bosnian and Serbian parents were jointly celebrating the pride in their children.“

Thus, joint children‘s musical training helps to overcome mutual prejudices, stereotypes and xenophobia. If you wish to learn more about the summer school and the way differences are perceived by Serbian and Bosnian children, you can read the entire article of Guy de Launey.

Slovak children from Banská Štiavnica led by chorister Ismar Poric took part in workshops, too. „I believe it was a great for children, mainly when it comes to gaining new experience,“ says Jana Klimeková, who leads the choir in Štiavnica, „when it comes to music, they experienced another large concert which implies a sense of responsibility and in social terms, it was a unique opportunity to meet many new people and get to know a new country with different traditions.“

Photo: ERSTESTIFTUNG /Dejan Petrovic