Bujanovac – As part of the project "Our City, Our Schools", which is implemented by the Coordination Body’s Office of the Government of the Republic of Serbia for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja and Group 484, with the support of the Pestalozzi Children's Foundation from Switzerland, online youth activities called the "Tea Party" or "Ftesë për tea" are taken on the Zoom platform by 40 students from Bujanovac schools.  

Intercultural exchange, as one of the activities within the project "Our City, Our Schools", was supposed to take place in the period from March 18 to April 4, 2020 in the SOS Children's Village in Trogen between students from Bujanovac and students from Switzerland, but it was canceled due to the global pandemic of the corona virus. Socializing with a group of children of the Serbian, Albanian and Roma nationality, which started at workshops held at the Subotica Faculty of Economics’ Department in Bujanovac in October 2019, continued through an online platform.

The first online Tea Party was held, through a Zoom application, on Sunday, April 11, 2020, with students who did not take part the first intercultural exchange in Switzerland, when they exchanged their quarantine experiences over tea. They learned from each other that talking with our loved ones, music, dancing, creative hobbies and listening to nature were the mainstays of overcoming the moments when we feel anxious or scared. Regular communication with students is maintained through a joint Viber group, while Sunday is a day for an online tea party.

One of the activities done with young people was "Write a Letter to Your Friend from another City/ Country", where students were given the task of introducing themselves, through the form of a letter, to the friends they were to meet during the intercultural exchange in Switzerland. Through online socializing, they discussed whether they had ever sent a letter by mail, and then the students read the most interesting parts of the letters and made guesses about who the letters had been written by. They e-mailed the letters to their friends in Switzerland and promised that they would send them the real letters when the emergency measures in the country were lifted.

On Sunday, May 10, 2020, a special online tea party will be held, which is called tea and the "I have talent" challenge, when students will have the task to present their talent in a short form of up to 2 minutes on the Zoom platform. During May, the undertaking of online activities will continue until all the necessary conditions for a safe organizing of workshops and trainings for young people in Bujanovac have been met.

Source: Civic Initiatives and Coordination Body