Association of Election Officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina (AEOBiH) started implementation of the project entitled “Learning and Knowing - means Existing” in March 2006, which should be implemented in cooperation with 10 secondary schools throughout BiH until the end of March 2007. This project is being implemented thanks to the funds of the Office of Public Affairs, USA Embassy in BiH.

The purpose of the project is that the youth who turned to be 18 years old and acquire voting right become aware that they are the ones that dynamics and type of changes happening in BiH depend on. The project will include four students (two male and two female) from 10 secondary schools throughout BiH, 5 from the Federation of BiH (Vareš, Maglaj, Breza, Bugojno, Ljubuški) and 5 from the Republic of Srpska (Ribnik, Šipovo, Rudo, Kasindo and Kneževo) who turned 18. They will be in Sarajevo from May 16 to May 20, 2006. During that period, lectures will be organized, where they will learn about: Political system in BIH, Elections in BIH, Human rights and freedoms, Democratization of relations in school/Strengthening of capacities of students councils, Getting closer to EU, Mid-term strategy – fight against poverty and millennium aims, Gender issues, Importance of the Law on free access to information.

All lectures would be organized by the AEOBiH Secretariat in cooperation with OSCE and BIH institutions. Besides that, visits to all government levels will be organized for students (one of Sarajevo municipalities, Canton Sarajevo, Parliament of the Federation and Parliament of BiH), in order to better understand levels of authority in BiH and their functioning. Sightseeing tour in Sarajevo will be also organized for the students.

Afterwards, when they go back to their original municipalities, they will be obliged to pass their acquired knowledge to students’ councils and their age-mates in their classrooms about popular topics and to promote importance of going out to vote at the elections among young people.