After a few years of break, young people from the sister city of Langenhagen are once again visiting Bijeljina. The visit is organized by the non-governmental organization “Help for Young Life”. Along with thirty young people, teachers from the local high school, as well as the former deputy mayor of this German city and long-time friend of Bijeljina, Willi Minne, have also arrived. The guests are staying in the homes of their hosts in Bijeljina, continuing the tradition of mutual hosting between friends from the two sister cities, established more than twenty years ago. During their three-day stay, the young people from Langenhagen are touring Semberija to get acquainted with the local culture and traditions. On the first day, they visited the Bijeljina City Hall, where a reception was organized for them by Mayor Ljubiša Petrović.
 
Željko Dragić, president of the organization “Help for Young Life”, reminded on this occasion that the first contacts between the two cities were established in 1999 when he was a student and organized the first youth exchange.
“In a series of mutual visits, at least a thousand young people from Bijeljina have visited Langenhagen, and it is hard to find a street in Bijeljina from which at least one young person has not travelled to Germany with our organization,” Dragić emphasized.
 
The twinning charter between Langenhagen and Bijeljina was signed in 2007, and since then, in addition to youth exchanges, cooperation between the two local governments has been achieved, with the implementation of several joint projects, such as the procurement of greenhouses for the Agricultural and Medical School, a project commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, or the construction of a peace monument in the City Park in Bijeljina.
 
“Bijeljina and Langenhagen have had excellent cooperation for two and a half decades, and I think it is very important that young people are a significant part of that cooperation, as they easily establish friendships that are a pledge for future partnerships. We have heard about the plan for our young people to travel to Langenhagen in August, and the City will be pleased to support this,” announced the Mayor of Bijeljina.
 
Among the delegation from Langenhagen is history teacher Christiane Bühne, who is visiting Bijeljina for the fifth time, having come twice privately because she has made friends here.
“We want to establish more serious cooperation with your High School, because we believe it is important for young people to have contact, socialize, and exchange knowledge,” says Christiane Bühne, adding that she sees Bijeljina as an open city where people are warm and pleasant, and that the planet we live on is shared and we should build as many bridges between people as possible.