Dear Visitors,
Hello and welcome to BOSFAM’s website. The Association Bosnian Family (BOSFAM) is a Bosnian, non-governmental organization with headquarters in Tuzla, BiH.  BOSFAM’s work is guided by the principles of humaneness, impartiality, independence and voluntarism.  As a non-governmental organization, our goal is to help war-affected women cope with their suffering, misery and poverty.

Our Members
WOMEN – Especially those who have been left alone to provide for themselves and their families.
WOMEN – All are welcome at BOSFAM regardless of nationality, religion, education or age.

We all follow BOSFAM’s motto:

We work, We talk, We help ourselves and one another!  Join us!

BOSFAM – BOSNIAN FAMILY is a non-governmental organization based in Tuzla and founded in  October 1994. BOSFAM was created during the war as a solution to the situation that we all found ourselves in. Back then a large number of people in BiH, especially women, children and elders, needed help. Many women victims of war were expelled from their homes and left alone to take care of their children and their parents.

Working women and housewives came to know the tragic situation for which they were not ready and therefore needed help. International organizations and volunteers started helping out. At the end of 1993 and the beginning of 1994, OXFAM -- a non-governmental organization from the UK (Oxford) -- started a knitting project all over the collective centres in the TPK area. The project was implemented in the collective centres in which women were living with their children, displaced from their homes and facing everyday fear of bombing. Women accepted this project as an opportunity to do something that was going to occupy their attention while they were living in undignified terms of life. After that a new project was born – the workshop opening project, or also known as centres for gathering of women victims of war. In nicely furnished rooms near the collective centres, we were creating a sense of friendship, usefulness and belonging. There would be women, children and elders working, hanging out and playing together. The centres were filled with life even though there was violence and devastation all around us.

We wanted to live and work, we wanted to survive and stay as sane as possible in the insane circumstances we were surrounded by.

In 1994, some of the foreign organizations began withdrawing their staff to other countries due to everyday attacks and bombings. So a question was brought up in the centres; what if OXFAM leaves? Familiar with the situation and the role they played in everything, the women said: “We will go on, we must go on! We are staying here!”

And so BOSFAM, a non-governmental organization was born. BOSFAM started as an OXFAM project, but later on with the training and support it developed BOSFAM became independent. It started developing and teaming up with other international and domestic organizations. We would like to point out that we did not even know what a non-governmental organization was when we started forming it but, but we knew that we did not want to just sit around and stay helpless. We felt the weight of war on our shoulders and we knew we had to do something for ourselves and others.

That is how our slogan became to be:

We work, we talk, we help ourselves and others. JOIN US!

The name Bosanska Familija was formed when our families were torn. In BiH, family is traditionally the following:

• FAMILY – the basics of belonging, safety, loyalty, trust and pride
• BOSNIAN family – very colourful, with a heart as big as Bosnia itself. In Bosnian Family, women socialize and work together no matter the age difference, religion, nationality, education, and displaced or not. We are simply the women of Bosnia.

In a very short period of time BOSFAM has managed to organize and mobilize a strong network of help for families and neighbours in their time of need.

That especially became apparent with the fall of Srebrenica when women of BOSFAM embraced many other victims that lost their dearest ones in the Srebrenica massacre. We gave them support and included them in BOSFAM’s activities.

BOSFAM’s primary goal was to organize and develop an organization of self-help which would strengthen and support the growth of capacity and therefore be justified. Our goal is to support ourselves through training, so that our women would be qualified and trained to make their own decisions for themselves and their family, to be informed, to study, to make money, and to also give our local support in finding sources which can supply help in other areas of trauma healing and rehabilitation of women and their children. BOSFAM’s door is always open for women who need help. BOSFAM’s work also includes a great coalition of workers who are offering direct help and support for women until the economy is stabilized. BOSFAM has made it possible for the women in the centres to get income sufficient to feed their families, while keeping their arms and minds busy all the time.  Additionally this income is the product of inherited skills, which are to be nurtured so that the cultural legacy would be preserved.

Handmade wool rugs, ethnic knitted pullovers, scarves, gloves, socks, and a number of other traditional products are produced by women that were displaced from their homes during the war. Many of these items have become a symbol of a woman’s determination to get through the tragedy of war. BOSFAM stays operational because of determination, leadership and discovered abilities among the communities of displaced women. BOSFAM is proud of its achieved results which have justified its work by demonstrating the possibilities of joint organization and support to women. BOSFAM is also proud of its network, cooperation and friendship with many domestic and international organizations.

The time we are living in is a period of reconstruction and transition which requires flexibility, a great amount of patience and a lot of hard work and determination in order to succeed.

BOSFAM wishes to make its contribution towards the transition of both family and the society, with projects to those who dare to challenge the times ahead of us, and therefore help themselves and others in the best way possible.

Therefore – join us!