With Burja around Europe – Between the Green and Cutural heritage of Subotica and its suburbia

Members of the Burja Institute crossed the border for the first time as part of the group mobility of adult learners. A group of eight participants, most of them members with fewer opportunities, together with their entourage, got into two cars in the second half of November and drove to the idyllic village of Tavankut near Subotica, where they were received by representatives of the visiting organisation – the Croatian Cultural and Educational Society Matija Gubec, which already for many decades he has been taking care of the cultural tradition of the members of the Croatian ethnic minority Bunjevci, who live in Vojvodina and the Republic of Serbia.

Members of various ethnic communities living in the Republic of Slovenia were able to get to know the members of ethnic minorities in Vojvodina and their attitude towards the majority society and vice versa. The intercultural dialogue and coexistence of the three largest nations of Subotica – Serbs, Hungarians and Croats – was one of the important issues that the participants could learn about. For this purpose, they visited a Croatian representative organisation in Subotica, which takes care of Croats’ rights as an ethnic minority.
They talked to the representatives and realised that matters concerning inter-ethnic coexistence are improving in the light of half-past history, but the picture is still far from ideal. Much of this will be solved when Serbia also becomes a part of the European Community, and the representatives of the Croatian community want this to happen as soon as possible, also because of their daily ties with their mother country.

They also visited the City Museum of Subotica, where the curator showed them part of the city’s rich history and, above all, arranged green spots around the museum to strengthen green competencies. And there is nothing wrong if we can boast a little that they got the idea for this through one of the previous Erasmus+ projects (Mladi zEKO), which Zavod Burja implemented in the local community in the past.
Above all, our participants spent a lot of time creatively making various motifs in different techniques of manual skills, which both visitors and hosts cultivate – making in the straw technique, bobbin, lace, embroidery, making various jewellery, etc.

They have also learned about examples of green ecological practices, which the small ethnic village of Tavankut, in the sense of building ethnic-tourism, has started to lead in its sustainable orientation. As a concept of local community development, a sustainable approach in cooperation with cultural tradition is the future we all want in light of climate change.

The central goal of the three-day training in the group mobility of adult participants in the framework of Erasmus+ accredited mobility was to encourage and motivate adults to participate in informal art programs. Here, we mean the activities of learning about green strategies and sustainability in culture and art, promoting the cultural potential of adults in the field of artistic creation, presenting European and national educational programs, projects and events in culture and art, developing entrepreneurship, artistic creation skills, learning about techniques and ideas, which help to operate in an intercultural environment, artistic creation and digitisation and active cooperation between different actors in local and national communities to promote intercultural dialogue and better social inclusion of various members of vulnerable groups in majority society.