Muslim Youth Foundation MYF
Bosnian Children's Project
Fundraising for THE MUSLIM YOUTH FOUNDATION
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The Bosnian Children Project
The MYF-BCP was started by the Muslim Youth Foundation in Manchester in Ramadhan 2000. Alhamdulillah the project has now been running for some 12 years. When the project started the aim of the project was to cater for the educational, cultural & religious needs of some 500 Muslim children who were living in very difficult economic & social conditions in 17 refugee camps around the city of Tuzla in North-Eastern Bosnia. The majority of families in these refugee camps were survivors of the massacre of Muslims that took place in & around the town of Srebrenica in Eastern Bosnia in July 1995. Now, our project principally caters for the children & families who are gradually returning to their pre-war homes in Eastern Bosnia. These children & families are returning to a hostile & ethnically cleansed landscape. The children critically need support in adapting to a new life as a minority. The MYF-BCP attempts to provide this support.
The BCP project sponsors the following activities for Bosnian children:
Islamic education classes, Information Technology classes, Classes to support children in their school work, Sports activities (football, basketball, volleyball, table tennis, swimming, martial arts classes). In Ramadhan, Iftars & Islamic talks are held for the children & at Eid (both Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid–ul-Adha) parties are held for the children, with distribution of Eid presents. Social gatherings, tournaments & day leisure visits are also organised for the children. Group visits from the UK are organised each year to see the work of the project in Bosnia. The MYF-BCP works in conjunction with 2 partner organisations in Bosnia, Selsebil and Prosvjetitelj who are both officially registered with the Bosnian Government via its official Islamic national organisation (Islamska Zajednice BiH). Selsebil works with the children in the refugee camps located around the city of Tuzla in north-eastern Bosnia. Enlightenment works with the children of refugees who have returned to their pre-war homes in & around the town of Srebrenica.