Division Description

During the first phase of the project (Council Decision 2010/179/CFSP) a year-and-a-half long collection and awareness raising campaign was conducted in Croatia resulting in the collection of 1,753 weapons, 16,368 illicit fragmentation weapons, 818,153 pieces of ammunition and 620kg of explosives, and resulting in heightened public awareness. In Serbia, an innovative awareness raising campaign using an online platform helped SEESAC gather invaluable information about the prevalent attitudes and about the presence of SALW. Armed with lessons learned from those campaigns, the second phase of the project will focus on three mutually reinforcing tracks:

• Design and implementation of collection campaigns which will be based on targeted awareness-raising actions in order to properly disseminate details of the legalisation and voluntary surrender of illegal firearms;

• Development and implementation of awareness raising activities on the dangers posed by the possession of illicit firearms, ammunition and explosives;

• Use of innovative tools such as crowdsourcing to map the illegal possession of firearms and raise the awareness of the population as to the threat posed by illicit weapons.