This project included the education of children form seventh and eighth grade of primary schools in Sarajevo about dangers of Small Arms and Light Weapons.
Lectures have been held in 12 primary schools in Canton Sarajevo within the implementation of the above-mentioned project, as well as in 3 primary schools in East Sarajevo. The lectures took place in schools that belong to four municipalities in Sarajevo (Center, Stari Grad, Novo Sarajevo and Novi Grad), as well as the municipalities Kasindo, Pale and Lukavica that belong to East Sarajevo.
The lectures consisted of four parts:
1. The first part consisted of the introduction of instructors, introduction of CSS, Presentation of the very project, as well as few words on the Small Arms and Light Weapons problem.
2. In the second part the instructors tried to familiarize children with the fact that weapons today present an alarming problem in the world and in our country. In order to make them think more seriously about this problem, few facts regarding the danger and consequences of the use, that is, misuse of weapons. Emphasis was placed on the fact that every minute one person dies from SALW and that it is foreseen that the misuse of SALW will take more lives in the future than any epidemic.
3. The third and most interesting part of the lecture both for the instructors and children was the interactive dialogue.
4. At the end of the lecture we tried to com to a conclusion together with children regarding this problem.
After the visits to schools and conversations with a large number of children (around 1500 of them), the CSS team is satisfied with what it had achieved. In the interactive dialogue with children, which was the most important part, we received data which helped us to learn the thinking of these children regarding this problem. The misuse of SMAL in the world, especially in post-war countries as is BiH, represents an alarming and big problem. That is why the aim of this project was to point out the dangers of SALW to children since we assumed that children in this period (early puberty) are inclined to experiment, so we assumed that children will be tempted to play with weapons if they accidentally found it. This is not impossible at all since there is much hidden SALW remaining in BiH.
Due to such a situation, this project attempted at educating children on all consequences and dangers of SALW in order to reduce eventual risks to a minimum.
During the implementation of the project and conversation with children we encountered various opinions and experiences of children.