Justice and Human Rights Bosnia and Herzegovina Project #10099

Sponsor Bosnian-Herzegovinian youth to build peace

by Center for Peacebuilding

Sponsor Bosnian-Herzegovinian youth to build peace

Project Report | Jun 11, 2015
My Peace Camp Story- With love, from Nedzla

By Nedzla | 2014 Peace Camp participant

Dear Peace Camp sponsors,

My name is Nedzla, I am 20, from Visosko, and a participant in the 2014 training. Last year around this time I was preparing to submit my application to CIM, and I now wanted to share reflections as a gratitude for the opportunity to take part in Peace Camp.

The opportunity to go to new places, cities, and meet new people is always a good motivation for me to do something. The trip to Bihac, and participating in Peace Camp 2014 exceeded my expectations. The most important lesson for me was that forgiveness, new beginnings, doing good things, and spreading peace and reconciliation with painful past, brings positive and useful results. The most important thing to realize in life is that all of us are people with fears,stories,wishes,suffering, no matter from where we come from or what nationality or religion we have. Our differences are our fortune, and we should get know each other instead of acting on prejudice. We should be proud of it instead of despising it.

I am proud of my friendships with people from Peace Camp, as their life stories and experiences made me better person. I will recommend Peace Camp and peacebuilding to young people who want to discover who they are, who want to make their own picture of past in our country, who want to create a better future and to believe in it.

I am so grateful to my dear Vadidin and Mevludin. I want to thank them for every word and lesson of peace,love, and respect. I want to congratulate them on their work and not giving up. They are heroes who won demons of past, and who create a better future made of peace and love. I hope that more and more people will follow them in their mission.

Thank you once again for giving me this chance, and for helping so many other young people go to Peace Camp.

Yours,

Nedzla

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Mar 18, 2015
Collective Motivation-Peace Camp Developments

By Adelina Stuparu | Programme Manager

at the end of peace camp 2014

A few weeks ago a Bosnian TV show called 'Perspektiva' went to Mostar to speak to young people. Mostar is an iconic place in Bosnia, famous for its bridge which now divides the city into a Muslim part and a Catholic part. A young man was interviewed and he said he had never, in his entire life, crossed the bridge into the other community. He didn't know how they lived like, how the people were like, etc. A friend of mine was discussing this with me and was baffled by the story: 'how can you live in one of the most important and visited cities in Bosnia, and not leave your neighbourhood?'. Sadly, Mostar is not an isolated case in this regard. Many cities here are like this, and young people have very little experience of living in a diverse/multicultural society, despite being able to find people of different backgrounds steps away, or just across a bridge. This is a dangerous trend in a country which suffers from fear, nationalistic rhetoric, different histories, facts, and war trauma. Often the first step to change this is to show people a different perspective. To take their hand, cross the bridge with them, and show them those people living there look like you, go to similar cafes, have similar houses, and are not out to get you.

Peace Camp aims to work on these perspectives. It's been 6 months since young people from various towns and cities in Bosnia attended our training.We are forwarding their throughts on how it helps them personally, and how it motivated them to further become peace activists in the communities.

Among the activities they have implemented so far we can count an inter-ethnic camp, a work camp, weekly workshops on tolerance and non-violent communication, and constantly advocating for more integration of youth within their communities.

We thank you for investing in the project. We hope you feel like you have made a difference by doing so. If you are considering supporting us in the future, heads up, today (March 18th), globalgiving is matching all donations by 30%. It's a great way to add a bonus to your donation, but be quick, matching will only apply as long as a limited amount of funds last.

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Dec 30, 2014
Happy Holidays and Progress on Peace Camp

By Adelina Stuparu | Peace Ambassador/Online Fundraising Officer

Selfie of Edin, Dinka, and students in Germany

First of all, we would like to wish you all happy holidays from all the staff members in CIM. December has been a very busy month for us, and no doubt you have been very busy too. We hope you will have an amazing new year, and may most, if not all your resolutions become reality.

Our Peace Camp participants from 2014 are no exception to what usually happens after the training: a good number of people we train develop the confidence and skills they need to become leaders in their own community. So what have they been up to? Mili, one of our group leaders has finished building a tennis court for children in his town of Doboj in Eastern Bosnia. The project was built entirely with volunteers and most of the materials were donated by local community members. He has negotiated his way through achieving this. Moreover, he works for a local grassroots NGO and is also contributing to organising an interethnic peace camp in his area. From project participant to project leader, we couldn't be more proud of him!

Two other participants, Dinka from Tuzla and Edin from Visoko were selected to be responsible for taking a group of young people from Sanski Most to Germany for an exchange programme in Koln. They supported and mentored the high school children, were in charge of all the logistical arrangements and delivered workshops with both Bosnian and German young people.

Nejra now works for her local youth centre in Visoko, and is implementing some of the learning she got in peace camp in her work. She is a restless activist for social change, and with a wonderful, energetic, and motivational attitude, we are sure her work makes a great impact on the young people she works with in her town.

We will keep you informed about the progress of our project participants in their own communities. We would like to say a massive, sincere thank you for all of your support in 2014. Your generous donations have helped us continue our work, and now CIM is growing into an internationally renouned organisation.

With much gratitude,

Adelina & the CIM Team

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