Support for projects of cultural creation of national minorities

The Ministry of Education and Culture in the RS has made significant progress with affirmation and promotion of cultural creation of national minorities. The intention to improve the status of associations of national minorities resulted in passing the first Rulebook on co-financing cultural creation of national minorities in 2015, which defined the requirements, criteria and procedure of allocation of funds, with the aim of safeguarding the cultural heritage of national minorities and the cultural diversity of Republika Srpska. In 2016, the ministry supported 16 projects of national minorities and allocated a total of BAM 30,000. One of the significant projects was ‘Competition between primary schools on the knowledge of national minorities in BiH’, co-financed by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2016. It is an important large-scale project of the associations of national minorities aiming to expand this positive practice to three additional local communities in Republika Srpska. This project has been implemented for six consecutive years in Semberija – the city of Bijeljina and the municipalities of Lopare and Ugljevik, and the most important goal and result is to have eighth-grade pupils from primary schools belonging to the majority population learn about differences between ethnicities, their culture and customs during their regular classes. The project involves at least 100 pupils and their teachers (in one academic year) from 18 schools in the region of Semberija. Expansion of the project to other local communities would double the number of participants and increase the visibility of this project, which deserves attention from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Republika Srpska, because it represents a unique example of positive practice not only in Srpska, but also in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Ministry also provided support for this project by hosting the exhibition of the best works of pupils from this competition in its premises.