Peacebuilding and development begin with a culture of dialogue
During the past two days, a two-day conference “From a strong local community to sustainable peace” was held in Sanski Most, organized by the Network for Building Peace and the Center for Peacebuilding Sanski Most. With the aim of connecting local actors and creating new joint initiatives, over 30 representatives of civil society organizations from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina participated in the conference on the culture of dialogue, led by Mevludin Rahmanovic and Vahidin Omanovic, founders of the Center for Peacebuilding Sanski Most and the famous “Garden of Opportunities”, where the training was held.
“It was an honor for us to host this event. Our wish is that people leave Sanski Most different and motivated after seeing and feeling how we see peacebuilding. In the Garden of Opportunities, a special relationship of interpersonal relationship and relationship to nature is nurtured. As a society, we cannot boast that we nurture these kinds of relationships. It is five to twelve and if we want to leave our children what we have borrowed from them, we have realized that we need to start engaging in a culture of dialogue. And we do it through the so-called environmental peacebuilding, because where can you better open your heart and eyes than in nature, says Vahidin Omanovic from the Center for Peacebuilding Sanski Most.
The “Garden of Opportunities” is home to all who carry peace in their hearts
In order for people from Bosnia and Herzegovina and beyond to have their place where they can come to rest, connect with nature and everything that helps this country move forward and its citizens create a society that will be better and fairer for all of us, the idea of the Garden of Opportunity was created, which is today recognized as an important place and as an important partner that connects communities and people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its founders claim that it does not belong to them, but to all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Local Works as a program that opened the door to local actors to create change in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in various areas, such as capacity building of civil society organizations, community development, networking of local actors and creating a more favorable environment for philanthropy, is an important moment for our society because it finally gives us the opportunity to take responsibility for our future”, says Maida Zagorac from the Network for Building Peace, explaining that the whole process is led by five partner organizations, the Institute for Youth Development KULT, the Mozaik Foundation, the Network for Building Peace, the Tuzla Community Foundation and the Center for Civic Cooperation Livno, which will work together during this five-year Program, will be the bearers of the development of BiH society on the path to self-sufficiency.
This comprehensive program will ultimately provide an opportunity for BiH citizens to mobilize local resources in an efficient way, so that communities far from larger urban centers can solve local problems in accordance with their needs.
Equal opportunities for all within the “Local Works” Program
Beganovic Safeta from the Women’s Association “Jadar” Konjevic Polje, believes that the benefits of such networking are of great importance for her community: “We really need help, because 80% of our members are single mothers. As one of the first returnees to Konjevic Polje, my sister and I started a chicken breeding business, which is very successful today. We had to fight and take risks. We did our best to make it work, because we had no alternative. In 2003, we founded an association to help ourselves and other women returnees. We fought for the renovation of houses, the construction of schools and gained strength through those processes. As a group, we became confident and started working on more serious projects for women’s empowerment. Today, we are here to find out all the ways we can move forward, how to develop our programs with the support of larger organizations and get the opportunities for education that we desperately need. A culture of dialogue, especially in communities like ours, is very important, so upon our return we will apply everything we have learned here in our work with women.”
Stressing that they cannot change the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina on their own, the Center for Peacebuilding says that they consider all those who work on peacebuilding in any way to be their brothers and sisters. Peace, they claim, is also built with those with whom we disagree, and this is achieved through constructive dialogue. In order to find a way to progress on our own, we must listen to ourselves, explore and constantly learn.
