By Matea Jovanovic Nesic | Project leader
Between July and December 2025, our Mobile Outreach Team continued its mission of standing beside children with cancer and their families wherever support was needed—whether in Bosnia and Herzegovina or beyond its borders. This period was marked by deep emotional work, regional collaboration, and meaningful steps toward strengthening psychosocial care for families facing pediatric cancer. Through every visit, workshop, and conversation, our message remained the same: no family walks this journey alone.
Highlights of Our Field Work
Cross-border emotional support – Turkey
Once again, our outreach expanded beyond Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our team visited six families from Bosnia and Herzegovina currently undergoing cancer treatment in Turkey, as well as the Medical Park hospital. These visits provided emotional stability, practical guidance, and a familiar presence far from home, helping families feel supported during an especially challenging chapter.
Standing with grieving families – Tuzla region
Our psychologist attended two funerals of children treated at the hemato-oncology department in Tuzla. These moments of solidarity offered quiet comfort and compassionate support to families navigating profound loss.
Strengthening Psychosocial Care in the Region
“Days of Pediatric Psycho-oncology” – Regional Convention
One of this period’s proudest accomplishments was organizing our first-ever regional convention, “Days of Pediatric Psycho-oncology.” The event brought together psychologists, social workers, medical professionals, students, and representatives from Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, and we were honored by the presence of government officials and leading experts. Participants praised the event as much needed, emphasizing how important it was to promote childhood cancer awareness and psychosocial support on a broader scale. The convention included expert lectures and presentations from regional associations, strengthening collaboration across borders.
Community and Professional Development
Team-building for medical staff
We organized a team-building event for medical professionals, focused on strengthening communication, fostering trust and team cohesion, encouraging peer support, and promoting psychological well-being. Alongside these educational components, the activity offered space for fun, connection, and emotional reset.
Motivational workshop with young survivors (MladiCe)
Our MladiCe community gathered for a motivational workshop designed to support their ongoing medical and psychological needs, encourage adherence to follow-up care, and deepen group bonds. Through shared experiences and open dialogue, young survivors found strength and reassurance in one another.
Children’s Week workshop – Tuzla
In Tuzla, we organized a joyful workshop for children and parents in celebration of Children’s Week. Through fun activities and games, children learned how to relax, calm down, use kind and respectful language, build self-confidence, strengthen empathy, and practice positive thinking — all while simply enjoying the moment and having fun. Parents took great joy in watching their children laugh, play, and connect with others, and many shared meaningful conversations with our psychotherapist, reflecting on their children’s needs, emotional development, and their own experiences as caregivers during treatment.
Mental health awareness in Sarajevo
Our psychologist from Sarajevo visited a madrasa during Mental Health Days to speak with students about how to support peers undergoing cancer treatment, why awareness matters, and how to break down myths and stigma surrounding childhood cancer. The session helped cultivate empathy, inclusion, and mental health literacy among young people. Two of our young survivors acompanied our psychotherapist during this visit.
Our Impact This Period
Throughout this period, our team expanded psychosocial support beyond the country’s borders, reinforced the importance of community-based grief support, elevated pediatric psycho-oncology as a recognized regional field, empowered survivors through motivational and health-focused engagement, strengthened the healthcare workforce through team cohesion activities, and promoted understanding of childhood cancer among youth through school-based awareness initiatives.
Looking Forward
In the coming months, we plan to continue visiting families abroad when needed, deepen regional collaborations initiated at the convention, develop structured programs for bereavement support, expand survivor-focused activities and long-term follow-up guidance, and bring more awareness workshops to schools and youth communities.
A Note of Appreciation
To our friends, donors, and partners through GlobalGiving: your support makes it possible for us to stand beside families—whether in their homes, hospital rooms, school halls, or even in distant countries where treatment takes them. Because of you, grieving parents are met with compassion, survivors find strength and community, medical teams feel supported, and families abroad feel less alone. Together we continue turning hardship into resilience and loneliness into connection—one visit, one workshop, one shared moment at a time.
Links:
By Edin Sehic | Project Leader
By Edin Sehic | Project Leader
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