You may download the report HERE
Dear friends,
The past year (September 2023 – September 2024) has been marked on the global level by the wars in Ukraine and in Israel/Palestine. You can read about how these and other global and regional developments affected our work and motivation, as well as the purpose of engaging in peacebuilding in such circumstances from the personal vantage point of Nenad Vukosavljević in his text “Defence and the last days” at the beginning of our annual report this year.
Working with war veterans, marking unmarked sites of suffering, international cooperation, peace education, as well as publishing and promotion were our main activities once again this year.
We organised a reflection and planning meeting for war veterans in Daruvar at the end of last year, and this year we attended commemorations in Čardak near Derventa; Ahmići and Trusina; Herceg Novi in Montenegro, and White Armband Day in Prijedor.
The team working on marking unmarked sites of suffering (ONMS) implemented two actions. The first in November last year in the area of Ilidža, the wider Kalinovik area and Rudo. The second and larger action in March this year included visiting and marking 4 camps in Herzegovina: the Čelebići Barracks near Konjic, Heliodrom near Mostar, the Zijemlje Primary School in Istočni Mostar and the Museum of the Battle for the Wounded at Neretva in Jablanica.
We implemented two peace education activities. The Basic Training in Peacebuilding, our 45th, was held from 6 to 16 October 2023 in Kruševo, and the seventh Mir Page Мир Training in peacebuilding was held from 12 to 21 April 2024 in Berovo, both in North Macedonia.
We joined the study trip “Youth Remember the Forgotten” from 14 to 16 September 2023, organised by the Youth Initiative for Human Rights of Croatia and the Serb National Council to mark 30 years since Operation Medak Pocket when many civilians were killed. The study trip to Kosovo was organised from 6 to 10 November 2023 and in addition to CNA peace activists included several of our associates. Together, we visited Pristina, Gračanica, Kosovska Mitrovica and Prizren.
Invited by our associates from the CK 13 Youth Centre in Novi Sad, on 8 and 9 June 2024, activists of the Centre for Nonviolent Action held one of the Alternative Policy Seminars of this organisation, titled “Introduction to Reflecting on Peace”. We were invited by the same organisation to participate in the regional political school on the 1990s “Love Will Save Us!” held in Sremski Karlovci on 19 and 20 September 2024.
We organised two promotions of Biber Short Story Collections in Užice and Ulcinj and closed the Biber 06 Contest that received 490 stories. We expect the results of the Contest by the end of November 2024 and the Collection will be published in the first quarter of next year.
Our new book We Come in Peace: Peacebuilding with War Veterans will be coming out at the end of this year (2024). You can read more about the book, its importance, purpose, and the idea behind its publication in the text by Ivana Franović, one of the book’s authors and its editor.
We spoke with our friend and longstanding associate, activist Mirjana Trifković Marjanović who was once a participant in our peace education programmes, the basic training and the training of trainers. Read the interview we conducted with her to find out more about about her experience from the trainings, what they meant for her, as well as about peace activism in Bosnia and Herzegovina in general.
In cooperation with our friends Luan Imeri (North Macedonia), Amina Kaja (Kosovo), and Dalmir MIšković (Croatia), members of the CNA team wrote about the contexts in which we work, this time in a joint text. We also bring you a story from Kosovo “And Finally the Populace” by Nemanja Nestorović, an activist from Kosovska Mitrovica, because it is important for us to feature voices from Kosovo that call for peace, understanding and cooperation
Additionally, you can read Nedžad Novalić’s text “How to describe Srebrenica: 15 books to read about the Srebrenica genocide”.
We welcome your comments, insights and any feedback you can send us.
CNA Team
September 2024