CNA - 3-month Report (September

In the past three months major changes have happened within the project, two new volunteers have started their work. At the beginning of October, Jasmin Redzepovic from Sarajevo started his work at CNA and currently attends a three months course in Kleve/Germany "Education in civil dealing with conflicts". Cara Gibney from Belfast/Northern Ireland joined the team two weeks ago. Herewith we finally managed to gather a qualified team at CNA which is no longer a one person office.

Training for trainers in nonviolent conflict transformation Jablanica, 16-25th October, CNA/SHL (Schüler Helfen Leben) cooperation

The first training in a row of three planned seminars, has been held in Jablanica from 16-25th October. The training was originally planned to be held in the town of Teslic in Republika Srpska (RS - in further text), but the NATO threats of bombing Serbia led to increased tensions in RS and most of the foreigners were evacuated only a few days before the training was about to begin. Since we had (organisers - CNA &SHL) serious concerns about the security and received warnings about travel to RS, we were forced to cancel our reservation in RS and search for an alternative only 3 days before the training began. A feverish search resulted in the choice of Jablanica in the Federation of BiH and all travel arrangements for the participants needed to be rearranged. The whole action cost us much energy, but we managed to fix everything on time, virtually in the last minutes. Sixteen participants were chosen to take part in the training. Two of the participants came from Pristine/Kosovo, and they travelled alone despite the recommendation of the organisers. They were taken off the bus at the Serbian border and held and interrogated at the police station there for 6 hours. They were eventually released at 8 PM and managed to pass on the message that they were on their way to first Sarajevo and then Jablanica. An adventurous trip lasted for another five and a half hours and they arrived at the hotel in Jablanica at 1:30 AM. One of the trainers was woken up by the receptionist when they arrived, and we sat for another hour talking until the two calmed down a little, before being able to go to bed. Beside the two people from Pristine, three participants came from Belgrade and the rest were Bosnians from both entities. Nobody from the Croat areas came.

Apart from CNA, the training team consisted of Otto Raffai (Centre for Peace Studies - Zagreb, Croatia) and Ivana Franovic (Antiwar Campaign & Student Union, Belgrade/Serbia). Our guest trainer who covered the theme of psycho-social counselling was a local expert from the UNDP/UNV.

The participants were highly motivated, so the work was extremely exhausting, with sessions sometimes lasting until midnight.
The training focussed on deepening the very different skills and experiences that participants had already, and prepared them for the continuation of the programme. The initial dissatisfaction of some participants with the training concept diminished in the course of the training and resulted in very positive opinions by the end of it. The training team was also very satisfied with the work. A detailed 49 page report about the training in Jablanica, containing minutes of the sessions and an evaluation, is available in bosnian/croatian/serbian language through CNA.
The training was funded by the OSCE Democratisation office.

Follow-up meetings
Seven small teams of participants were set up during the training in Jablanica These teams chose themes which they will prepare workshop sessions for, and then conduct these sessions in the next training that will be held in January. The participants from Belgrade and Pristine built two mixed teams, much to the joy of the trainers. Five teams have already had follow-up meetings with the trainers, the goal of which is to support their preparation for the workshops they will conduct in the next training. These meetings were very fruitful and intense, focussing on actual workshop structuring. An additional written workshop structuring concept has been forwarded to all participants in advance. Two of the meetings were held in Banja Luka, one in Sarajevo, one in Zagreb and one in Baja/Hungary (the trainers could not travel to Serbia, and participants could not travel to Croatia, because of the visa barriers )
A further three follow-up meetings will be held in Sarajevo, in December.
The costs of follow-up meetings were donated by CARE International

Other activities
CNA has had to reregister the car, because of the new regulations and the same had to be done with the organisation itself. The bureaucratic way has as always been quite annoying, particularly in view of the fact that both registrations were done before 6 and 10 months respectively. One piece of good news about bureaucracy is that the Ministry in charge of "humanitarian work" has made the report forms (for obligatory 3 months reports for the Ministry) less complicated than they were before.

Visitors
A medical student, sent through IPPNW, spent two weeks in the CNA office, helping out with translation work and informing herself about the work of CNA. Since there was no real task that could be given to her as she spoke no local language and was very poorly informed about our work, the impression was that such short work-visits are not very meaningful for both sides.
Alan Playdell from the Quaker Peace and Service - London visited CNA in September, discussing future CNA and QPS work and possibilities of cooperation.
CNA met Berry Hart of CARE International. He informed us about their programmes and we discussed, together with UNDP volunteers of the UNDP/UNV conflict resolution programme, the possibility of better information exchange between groups and individuals active in this field.
CNA was visited by friends, two womens rights activists from Bombay and Belgrade respectively and two other former BPT volunteers.

Regular contact has been kept with our partner in Macedonia, the Embassy for Peace, concerning our joint projects for next year (see Annual report). Our partner is in charge of raising funds for the planned trainings, and they have reported that an international foundation has already given general approval for half of the sum needed.

CNA and SHL applied jointly for a grant needed to produce home pages which would make information about our activities, and those of our partners, more accessible. We were informed that we have a good chance of receiving the grant. The CNA home page will include:

CNA approached possible funders for a Networking meeting of trainers in NVCT from the territory of former Yugoslavia (planned for September 99) and received assurance that money will be granted.
Another project, a 10 day training in NVCT for youth received the same guarantees, from the same source.

During the training in Jablanica one participant from the Postpesimissts (Pristine/Kosovo) brought up the concrete idea of organising a training for a mixed group of:
        Albanians and Serbs from Kosovo,
        Albanians and Macedonians from Macedonia,
        Bosnians and Croats,
Which should be held in Macedonia in English language. Two trainers and a group of participants, from Belgrade and Pristine discussed the idea and agreed on cooperation on this project which should be implemented in June of next year. CNA has the responsibility of setting up the team and conducting the training. There is no news so far about further developments concerning the fund raising for the project.

I arrived in a snowy Sarajevo quite late on a Saturday night in early December. Claudia from Pax Christi Banja Luka, and Ivana from the training team were also staying in the flat for a preparation meeting, and so within a very short time I had met a couple of the people I would be working with in the future. I started to feel comfortable with them immediately.

Since then I have been finding my feet.. Trying to learn the geography of Sarajevo, readjusting to the language (it has been a year since I have conversed in local language), meeting with partner groups and funders, spending hours in the post office, shovelling snow, sorting out the living arrangements, eating proja and last night watching The UK and USA bomb Iraq on the TV.

Coming straight from working in Northern Ireland with our own peace process, and moving to BiH and the huge efforts in reconciliation and ´moving on´ that are happening here, I watched the US weapons of mass destruction bomb Iraq last night and started to feel hopeless again. (Clinton and Blair came to Northern Ireland a few months ago and shed tears at the horror of the Omagh bombing!)
But it´s not hopeless. The more I learn about the work of CNA here the better I feel about being involved with the project. Of course I know this is very easy for me to say at this stage, before the detail and the difficulty of the job starts. Before I meet people that the war has changed irreparably. Before I go through the stage of doubting how much use I am. I already feel spoilt and well fed. But I haven´t seen enough to take on board how lucky I really am. I have all this in front of me.

But I have nearly 2 weeks of CNA behind me already. And by all accounts this 2 weeks has been a very positive time for us. The dry summer of funding that we suffered seems to have eventually lifted, and funding is coming in from various organisations and foundations. Maybe I brought some of that Irish luck with me. Or maybe Nenad´s perseverance eventually paid off. Maybe both.

Either way, it looks like we can feel safe with our funding for the time being and just get on with the job, which is a huge relief. I am looking forward to meeting Jasmin and the rest of the trainer team, and to get involved with the training development. I cant wait to see how these famous role plays are formulated!. I´m really interested in the methodologies. It is going to take some time to get a wholepicture of all the work that has been done, and I`m looking forward to the time that I have a grasp on that. But there is no point in trying to run before I can walk, so I am going now to brush up on my Bosnian vocabulary.

Cara Gibney and Nenad Vukosavljevic
For Centar za nenasilnu akciju
the Project office of KURVE Wustrow

Special thanks to:
Aktionsgemeinschaft Dienst für den Frieden - AGDF
Berghof Stiftung & Berghof Institute for creative conflict menagement
Care International - Banja Luka
CNA Support group Hamburg
Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft Vereinigte Kriegsgegner - DFG VK Bielefeld
Internationale Ärzte zur Verhütung des Atomkrieges - IPPNW Deutschland
Menschenrechtsreferat des Diakonischen Werkes
OSCE Democratisation office, Sarajevo
Pax christi - Deutscher Zweig
Quaker Peace and Service
Schüler Helfen Leben
Towae Stiftung

CNA will very much welcome feedback, suggestions, questions and criticism
concerning this report and our general work.
Your thinking along, helps us!
Thank you.