Izvor Gives Thanks

January 11, 2014

By an Alliance worker

As a part of our work at Izvor (“the Source”) community center in Sarajevo, we always look for opportunities to partner with organizations in our local community. This has been an especially successful year for partnering.

We collaborated with a local center for speech and hearing rehabilitation on a preschool art exhibit that helped raise funds for remodeling the pre-school room. Also, we have had several partnership projects with students and teachers from the Sarajevo Applied Arts High School. Both of these schools participated in our film seminar and festival, along with eight other local high schools. I was invited to speak during their Art Emphasis Week.

Izvor’s Thanksgiving party and exhibit this year was entitled “Changed and Changing,” emphasizing the importance of recycling, which is practically unknown in Bosnia Herzegovina. The kids from our children’s program collected nearly 3,000 plastic caps, which we donated to the Cap Project of Bosnia Herzegovina. Proceeds from recycling the caps go toward purchasing wheelchairs for those who can’t afford to buy their own. Also featured in our exhibition were the works of two artists who use recycled materials.

We are excited and at times overwhelmed at how God keeps opening doors for us to build bridges into the Sarajevo community. We are thankful that so many of you have given sacrificially to the Great Commission Fund so that we have the time and resources to develop these kinds of partnerships. We can’t wait to see what fruit these relationships may bring in the years to come.