Balkan Youth Union (BYU) and EBCO Balkan – Belgrade office, both as a members of PEACE POLICY NETWORK in Serbia, organized an activity stand on EXIT festival in Novi Sad from 7-10th July 2005 for the purpose of collection of the faces (photographs) for MILLION FACES petition as a part of the global CONTROL ARMS campaign.
7-10th July, 2005
Novi Sad – EXIT FEST on Petrovaradin fortress and EXIT CAMP – CONTROL ARMS Stands
BYU and EBCO Balkan activists and volunteers (13 people) hold two stand spots on EXIT festival – one on the fortress and one inside the EXIT Camp on Danube river. Stand existed on both spots for four days during the festival which already become one of the most popular music festivals in Europe.
Activists and volunteers of BYU and EBCO made photographs of visitors of the stand, bringing out more facts about the whole campaign and distributing flyers “Small arms is a weapon of mass destruction”.
The fortress stand (hosted by 7 people) was active from 18 till 24.00 hours, and almost every day even until 2 o’clock in the morning, and during that time we collected more than 1.000 “signatures” – photographs for the Million Faces campaign, distributed more than 5.000 flyers and 150 posters all over Petrovaradin fortress. For the most original photo or written message we provided printed branded T-shirts – with a Control Arms logo on the front – around 270 pcs.
The stand was covered by banner CONTROL ARMS and all around fortress we placed posters (Every minute someone is killed by gun”).
The other stand, in the EXIT Camp (hosted by 6 people) was much more active during the day, from 12 till 20.00 hours. Activists, volunteers and friends of BYU and EBCO Balkan were circulating through the camp trying to collect as much photos as possible for the Million Faces petition.
The whole activity was covered by local (Studio B and B-92) and couple of regional TV stations.
BYU provided full accommodation and meals for all participants of the activity on EXIT in Student Centre in Novi Sad. This was partially sponsored by donors partially from BYU resources.
The global result of the activity is far below expectations, because of a very bad weather conditions during the three days (out of four) of the festival. Second day, a strong storm destroyed almost all propaganda materials of all NGOs on NGO STAGE, where BYU fortunately had a plastic banners that saved our material from a strong rain. Unfortunately, on the last day we lost our banners, on both stand – assuming that some youngsters successfully used it as a protection from rain. In very difficult conditions of cold rain and lot of mud BYU activists continued to work on fortress even on 3rd and 4th day, but, on the end, the results are obviously far below our plans.
