22/08/2023

Protection and Sustainable Use of Water – Theme of the Second Festival Evening of the project “Environmental Response in Timočka Krajina”

On Sunday, August 27, from 7 p.m., on the basketball court near the secondary schools in Zaječar, as part of the project “Environmental response to mining expansion in Timočka Krajina”, which is funded by the EU and implemented by the Association “Za Drinking Fountains” and partner organizations from Bor and Zaječar, a special Festival evening will be organized. It will feature inclusive play, environmental films and a public forum. The theme of this year’s event is water protection and sustainable use of water.

Boban Pogarčić from the Association “Za Drinking Fountains” said that after the official opening of the Festival, the audience will have the opportunity to watch the inclusive performance “Boy from the Water” by the Zaječar Children’s Center and after that there will be a film program realized as a special edition of the International Environmental and Tourist Film Festival SILAFEST, which has been held for 15 years on the banks of the Danube in Veliko Gradište.

“The film program will begin with the documentary film “Living Water”, produced by the Association “Za Drinking Fountains” and executive produced by “Za media”, and it is the third and last part of the Drop trilogy, which deals with the protection of artesian fountains in Zaječar and the struggle of citizens to preserve this natural wealth. After that, international films from the selection of the 15th SILAFEST will follow. After the films, a public forum will be held on water protection. Environmental activists and experts in the field of environmental protection will speak and the audience will be able to actively- participate in the forum.“

In the “Children’s Center” in Zaječar, preparations for the inclusive play “Boy from the Water” began at the beginning of this year. The theme of the play which perform the young members of the “Children’s Center” and the Association “L-Down” is the pollution of water resources and how it can be prevented.

According to Selena Ristić, director of the Children’s Center, a partner in the project “Environmental response in Timočka Krajina”, this year’s inclusive performance is actually a continuation of last year’s “Give a Breath”, which was shown at the Festival Evening in Bor in August 2022, when the audience through the performance of young people could see the consequences of industrial air pollution and the way to solve the problem through the activism of young people who inherit the planet from the elderly.

“This year’s play “Boy from the Water” deals with the problem of water pollution in Timočka Krajina and beyond, and what we focused on during the workshops in the previous months was research on how and to what extent water is polluted and how it can be purified, what we could undertake but we didn’t”, says Selena Ristić and adds that the whole performance will be enriched by young people from our country and surroundings who are participants in the Festival “Art Zone for All”.

Association “Za Drinking Fountains”

This text was produced within the project “Environmental response to mining expansion in Timočka Krajina” funded by the European Union, and implemented by the Association “Za Drinking Fountains”, the Association of Young Researchers Bor, Civic Library “Europe” Bor and Children’s Center Zaječar. The content of the text is entirely responsibility of these associations and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.