Mitrovica, Mostar and Struga Youth at Super Rock Camp in Skopje

Youth from three flashpoint cities in former Yugoslavia join forces to rock Skopje

Expanding Rock School program
After five years of successfully bringing communities together in Mitrovica, Kosovo, MwB is expanding its Rock School Program to other troubled areas in the Balkans. From August 26 to September 2, eighty young musicians from Mitrovica, Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Struga (Macedonia) and the Netherlands, will travel to Macedonian capital Skopje for a full week of band practice and performance.

Youth from flashpoint cities
The participants are teenagers and young adults from both sides of flashpoint towns in former Yugoslavia. For the Mitrovica participants, this Summer School celebrates the fifth anniversary of their Mitrovica Rock School. For the Mostar participants, the week is the festive launch of the new Mostar Rock School.

Rock and reconciliation in Mitrovica
The first Summer School in 2008 led to the establishment of the Mitrovica Rock School. Since then, 300 youth have attended the Rock School, while this year 120 Serb and Albanian teenagers from the divided city will have played and performed together in mixed bands during the annual Summer School. Since the security situation prevents the students from attending one school, the Mitrovica Rock School works from two locations, one on each side of the river. Once a year the Rock School brings students from both sides to Skopje to learn, perform and break taboos about the “people from the other side.”

New Rock School in Mostar
Like Mitrovica, Mostar was heavily affected by the war and the city is divided along ethnic lines: Croats in the West and Bosniaks in the East, also divided by a river.
But the somewhat calmer situation will allow the Mostar Rock School to function in one building and have all of the students, from all ethnicities, in one place. Mostar has a proud music tradition: it is the home of the annual Mostar Blues Festival and many Mostar musicians have gained regional renown with bands like Dubioza Kolektiv and Zoster. These musicians will work at the school as teachers and organizers, and will start working with the school’s teenage students during the Skopje Summer School.
More about MwB in Bosnia- Herzegovina