Sponsor Bosnian-Herzegovinian youth to build peace

Our final Peace Camp activites have concluded in November 2015. This year's peace camp have again attracted wonderful and motivated participants from all over Bosnia.

After the end of the week, the participants went home to implement community peacebuilding activities.

Most activities included tours to local religious and historical sites, meetings with religious leaders at these religious sites, visits with youth organizations in the various regions, trips to museums, and time for socializing and discussion. Workshops with a focus on younger participants focused primarily on addressing stereotypes and ways to approach peace building activism. Participants in Mostar, after visits to local religious sites and an extensive discussion on their learnings, distributed leaflets through town with messages of peace.
In total they have organised 9 community events, and as a result they were able to reach out to 100 more people in their own towns and cities (Mostar, Travnik, Gornji Rahic in Brcko District, Buzim and Prijedor, Banja Luka in partnership with Helsinki Citizen’s Foundation, Kresevo and Visoko).

The participants also wrote stories of what Peace Camp has meant to them and we wanted to share one with you.

It was a very great honor for me to participate in this peace camp and to get to meet such nice people that I got to spend 7 days with. Those 7 days were great fun for me and I learned a lot. I learned how we all, regardless of how much we try, have prejudices about other people, but also how to minimize those prejudices. I learned how to be different and equal. I learned a lot about different religions. Religions that are and are not so familiar to me. The most important thing is that I learned something new about myself. I learned how to look at the world in a new way and to accept things the way they are, and try to be a better person. I thought about things that I didn’t think I was capable of talking about. And I felt relief. In these 7 days,  there were many smiles and tears, joy and frustration. And those feelings united us and made us into one. In one word, it was extraordinary. Thank you for that, Amra

Hope you will have wonderful holidays, and a winter full of joy and kindness.

Best wishes from Sanski Most,

Adelina and the CIM Team

Since our last report, we have managed to successfully organise another annual Peace Camp training. During the summer months, we recruited 18 youth with ages between 18 and 25 and from the 22nd-29th August 2015, we trained our participants from Visoko, Priboj, Brcko, Vitez, Travnik, Mostar, Prijedor, Buzim, Kresovo, Han Pijesak, Sarajevo, Bjelina, and Banja Luka.

The programme included many workshops designed to facilitate personal transformation, to expand the participants' knowledge and perspectives on current issues in BiH, as well as to break down prejudices and use the activities as cultural experiences to find out more about different traditions and faiths. There were additionally workshops aimed at helping youth bring their learning to their communities. The youth learnt how to design and implement small scale peacebuilding activities upon their return home.

As a result of the training, 18 peace activities will be organised by the participants in their home communities. Some of the feedback from Peace Camp, and what the experience meant to the participants, is outlined in the comments below:

'This was my first time participating in peace camp and I was thrilled. First of all we had a very good quality of education and an opportunity to learn many things which will be practised in the future. What's more we had the opportunity to meet young young from different faiths. Given that the camp was such good quality, I got the motivation to continue to spread and work with these topics.'

'This is a place where we all are like one group where Nedela, Vinko and Marija, become real friends, where there are no tensions and anxiety, as there I have found my peace...here you arrive with some pain, but you return home recovered in some way.'

'I overcame many stereotypes, and learned how not to use prejudices. I learned what are the fundamental human rights, how to communicate, how to work in a team, and how to resolve conflict.'