CENTRE FOR NONVIOLENT ACTION

3 month report

December 1999 - February 2000


Centar za nenasilnu akciju - CNA is the project office of The Center for Education and Networking in Nonviolent Action - KURVE Wustrow, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
The project has started in September 1997. Main objectives of the project are trainings in nonviolent conflict resolution, networking and advisory activities aiming to support and induce local training structures in BiH. 
CNA is a registered NGO in BiH, as an external branch of KURVE Wustrow.

This report was published on 24th March 2000,
exactly one year since the bombing of Yugoslavia started and the violence in Kosovo exploded.


 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Major activities

     Livno (F BiH): Seminar organised by "ABRAHAM"
     Evaluation of CNA
     Preparation of the CNA evaluation
     Preparation of Training Manual
     2-Part evaluation and Strategy Planning seminar with Schueler Helfen Lieben (SHL)
     Training: Basics in Nonviolent Conflict Transformation
     CNA looking for International Volunteer
3. Work plan
     Work plan (March - Aug 2000)
     Work plan (Sept. 2000 - Aug 2001)
4. Difficulties
5. Visitors
     Visit of Martina Fisher and Julie Tumler in CNA
     Visit of Peter Wingert from the SWR (TV Station)
     Visit of volunteers from Friedenskreis Halle - Jajce
     Visit of Jelena Goronja
     


1.  INTRODUCTION

In the period of the new millennium celebrations, members of the CNA team, among other things, enjoyed a three-week holiday stacked in big snow, which made life in Sarajevo very difficult. While entering the New Year and new millennium, CNA also entered the final phase of our three-year project, and the start of a comprehensive evaluation of the work of CNA up to this point. At the same time we also noticed that most of the donors in BiH, even at the beginning of March 2000, did not know how many resources they have to fund projects in the year 2000; which reflected on CNA's fundraising ability. Also, during all of this, one member of CNA got married, and we celebrated that.

At the same time, in the Republic of Croatia there were important political changes with the opposition coming to power. We hope that these changes will have a positive influence on the political atmosphere in BiH and the wider Balkan region. An opportunity for that will be the elections in BiH in April.


2.  MAJOR ACTIVITIES

Livno (F BiH): Seminar organised by "ABRAHAM"
On the theme: Human rights with the accent on the freedom of the religion of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks in the area where they are in the minority
4 - 6. December 1999."Abraham" - a local association for peace work and inter religious dialogue from Sarajevo, organised a seminar in Livno, BiH. The main topic was 'human rights and the religious freedom of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks in areas where they were the minority.' It was the first of three seminars on this theme which were planned to happen in three different cities in BiH. A member of the CNA team was a facilitator at the seminar. Around 30 people attended, including representatives of local NGO's, media, political parties and other public persons from each of three constitutional nations of BiH.

The program of the seminar was split into three working days. On the first day after the introduction, the participants discussed the issue of minority human rights in Livno. Using the consensus decision making method participants were asked to consider the question "how can the condition of minorities in Livno be improved?" The group for the rest of the seminar used this same question as the main direction of further work.

The second day was planned as a lecture day with three different lecturers and topics. The lectures dealt with the issues of different communities living together, and confronting the guilt of each nation. Professor Vladimir Premec performed the first lecture from the University of Sarajevo, whose topic was the philosophy of "living together" in BiH.

Professor Ahmed Alibasic, a theologian, led the next lecture from Tuzla University. He discussed the distortion of religion and its misuse by nationalists, as has happened in BiH and throughout the world. He also explained in detail what he considers to be some of the Islamic attitudes towards different communities living together.

Christof Ziemer, a theologian from Germany who is an activist and one of Abraham's founder members, performed the last lecture. The lecture was entitled 'the recognition of own guilt', and it discussed communities and people living together after crime has been perpetrated. In the lecture he talked about the transformation process of German society from fascism to democracy after the Second World War. The discussions after the lectures were very interesting and inspirational for the participants.

The third day was left for action planning. The goal of this was to find a way in which this informal group could make some concrete action in improving the situation in Livno. This led to the forming of working groups which would prepare detailed reports about the situation in Livno and which would also put forward ideas and suggestions for concrete projects. Unfortunately, CNA will not take part in the next two parts of this program because of other obligations.

Evaluation of CNA

After two internal annual evaluations made by the CNA team, the project group and support group, CNA plans to do an evaluation of the period from Summer 1997 (the beginning of the project) to Summer 2000 (when CNA intends to become a local organisation.) The reasons for this are: researching the need for CNA and checking whether CNA has reached its goals.

CNA started to prepare for the evaluation in December 1999. Since December we have been working on clarifying what aspects of our work especially need to be evaluated. After several long comprehensive meetings we started to realise how many open questions have to be put forward for the evaluation. However, from these meetings and the working out of these questions, CNA has decided on specific points for the evaluation to focus on. Focusing on these points will help to streamline the information we gather, and will keep the evaluation of 3 years work of CNA within our capabilities.

A meeting with Martina Fisher (Berghof Institute) and Julie Tumler helped us by re-focusing questions and offering advice on evaluation based on their experience. This greatly assisted the preparation process and helped us to move forward with the evaluation for which we are very thankful. Also a consultation meeting organised by QPS (discussed in the below section) was helpful in this process.

Presently we are working on the evaluation by collecting written documentation and defining indicators (points of measurement) and interest groups (e.g. participants and donors) that we have chosen for evaluation.

Preparation of the CNA evaluation,
with the support of Quaker Peace & Service (QPS) sponsored consultation meeting.
11 January 1999

In September 1999 QPS organised a weekend seminar on the theme of 'Evaluation' in which a member of CNA participated. QPS offered follow-up meetings to the participants of this seminar, aiming at giving support and offering advice to the organisations in which they are active. The participants and their organisations had the choice of how they want to use these meetings which were to be on the theme of evaluation.
CNA decided to use this offer to help us prepare for the evaluation. To do this we prepared the above mentioned questions (see section 'CNA Evaluation') and sent them to Marina Skrabalo (Centar za mirovne studije- Centre for Peace Studies-Zagreb) and Natasa Milenkovic (Autonomous Womans Centre - Belgrade), who came to advise us on how to move forward with the evaluation. These questions then served as the basis of discussion when the advisory meeting took place.

The actual meeting dealt with three points, which were:
* Looking at evaluation methods we had been using until that point (on which level we had implemented evaluations in the past and how much of this is documented etc.)
* Going through the prepared questions on what CNA wants to evaluate and how, working out indicators and interest groups
* Working out the plan for developing the evaluation e.g. who, when, what etc.

From these three points we worked mostly on the first one because we did not stay on the subject, that is, we moved from preparing the evaluation to working on the actual evaluation itself. Due to this not all of our expectations for the meeting were realised, but it was useful for the clarification of key factors which should be included in the evaluation. QPS later held an evaluation of the advisory meeting with CNA. This was useful for CNA and also for QPS as the organisers of the advisory meetings. In discussion with QPS, CNA was able to tell them that we missed prior communication with the advisors before the actual meeting, which would have helped to clarify the focus questions. We also stated that we would have needed more time for the meeting. But we also made clear to QPS that the consultation was of great help and that many of it's limitations where our responsibility.

Preparation of Training Manual
Development of a 'Handbook for Trainings in Nonviolent Conflict Transformation'
Study trip


At the end of January I spent two weeks on a study trip, concerning the preparation of a 'Handbook for Trainings in Nonviolent Conflict Transformation. During this trip I met up with a number of people who have worked on similar projects before. I contacted these people beforehand and mailed them the outlines of the book requesting a meeting.

The first meeting of the trip was with Professor Mari Fitzduff in Derry/Londonderry, director of the Initiative on Conflict Resolution & Ethnicity (INCORE - www.incore.ulst.ac.uk ). Although Mrs Fitzduff has written a Handbook On Community Conflict Skills adjusted to the situation in Northern Ireland, the focus of her current work is not trainings themselves, but management of INCORE and international research work.

The range of questions that I had was too wide for an hour long meeting, but nevertheless it was very interesting and useful to discuss questions and hear Mrs. Fitzduff's opinions on issues like:
* what was the feedback on a 'Handbook Community Conflict Skills', that she wrote
* what accents have been given in training between interpersonal and social conflicts
* what emphasis has been given to practical skills and personal development
* what strategies have been used to develop public acceptance and secure the support of local community for conflict transformation work
* how to include people into work on a political level, despite resistance towards what politics stand for
* experience in training police
* what level of involvement of religious leaders has been achieved
* the role of gender issue in conflict work

To my surprise some parallels occurred in the context of Northern Ireland to the work in the Balkans that I have considered Balkan specific, e.g. the one of wide public resistance towards involvement in politics, because of the terrible image that those who deal with politics have. A question how to secure public acceptance and support for conflict transformation work is the one which CNA will be facing in the future. Mrs Fitzduff spoke of her experience in gathering a trustee board for their organisation consisting of widely known and cross-community respected public figures, as a way to approach community leaders and pave ways to approaching mid-level structures in the society (e.g. police, municipal leaders, priests etc).

Different to the estimate and valuing of CNA for work in our environment in the Balkans, Mrs Fitzduff has had the experience that raising gender issues in conflict work in Northern Ireland has usually meant avoiding the real issue of identity.

Steve Williams - Responding to Conflict (RTC) / INCORE
After the meeting with Mrs Fitzduff she kindly took me through the impressively equipped INCORE house and introduced me to some of the people working there. I got to know Steve Williams who works as a part-time researcher for INCORE and is a member of the organising/training team of a 10-week international training course run by Responding to Conflict in Birmingham. This meeting by chance was a fortunate event, as I had planned to travel to Birmingham and visit Responding to Conflict, but had not received a meeting confirmation up to that date. Mr Williams presented areas of RTC work he is mainly involved in and was very interested to hear about CNA and our work in the Balkans.

Diana Francis
I was very keen to meet Diana Francis, a trainer from England with very rich international training experience, who co-operates with various organisations including KURVE Wustrow, International Alert and Quaker Peace and Service. Diana Francis has been working on a 'Resource Pack for Conflict Transformation - International Alert, London', which I studied in the preparation phase for the Manual that CNA will publish.

I spent the whole afternoon with Diana Francis in the pleasant atmosphere of her home in Bath, discussing various issues and often getting carried away in our exchange on training philosophies and approach to dealing with conflicts. In our first phone call, when arranging a meeting, Diana Francis told me that she sees no great use of training handbooks, as she feels the need to see exercises before using and or adapting them, an opinion I share to a great extent. Nevertheless, the ambitious task I have taken on board, of writing a manual, seems to be no less manageable, useful and necessary, exactly for the reason of pointing out that a training manual can not be a "cook book of recipes". The challenging and honest attitude of Diana Francis fuelled my desire to exchange opinions with her and hear her views on questions that I was carrying along.

The close connection between personal development (questioning of one's attitudes and behaviours) and social skills, and the principles of nonviolence are the moments in the training philosophy we both seemed to share. Besides training philosophy, the conversation often embraced issues of global possibilities of nonviolent action against violence and injustice and possibilities and ways of incorporating those angles into training work. Mrs Francis' views on my questions concerning possibilities of securing community support for conflict transformation work (on CNA example), clarified the difference between an organisation with specific resources and role and a movement which would have a different focus and means of work. I very much enjoyed the chance to meet Diana Francis, and have felt empowered to continue the work I am in.

I hope for myself and CNA to be able to use the contacts made on this study trip and am confident that insights of the people I met will flow into Manual writing process.

2-Part Evaluation and Strategy Planning seminar with Schueler Helfen Lieben (SHL)

SHL requested the help of CNA to develop and implement a 2-weekend series of workshops, which would be a major segment of the self-evaluation that the present SHL team is implementing. CNA was asked to help in the development and implementation of 2 weekend seminars in English language, and also to support the analysis of the information obtained and the documentation of this information. The 2 weekends were an evaluation seminar and a strategy-planning seminar. CNA has never worked along this theme before, and the request was accepted as a pilot/experimental piece of work on adapting our work methods to gathering information appropriate for an evaluation.

The workshops were developed by CNA in co-ordination with the defined information that SHL needed to gather from the seminar. Present SHL staff have found themselves in the position where they did not have an intensive enough introduction to the work and the context of the work they are doing in BiH, and there is not enough documentation of previous SHL work for them to work on this formally.

From the seminars they wished to obtain information that would help them to build up a context in which SHL has worked and in which they are to work in the future, e.g. what types of groups are they co-operating with, what these groups think that SHL is here to do, difficulties they have had working together, benefits gained from working together, opinions on specific aims of SHL and what are the limits of SHLs work. From this information they can clarify points such as whether particular goals have been reached, and whether these are practical goals for the future.

The participants of the seminars were groups and individuals who have co-operated with SHL over the past number of years. General seminar methods such as brainstorming and group discussion were included, and less general methods such as theatre of statues and specific workshops were included in the seminars.

The implementation of the seminars turned out to need a lot of work, and through evaluation, several points and questions can be put forward. One issue was that participants felt they were discussing and suggesting points that they already knew - but on the other hand it was information needed for the evaluation. Another issue that was very prominent was the frustration felt by the participants on how their direct experiences, frustrations and ideas for SHL were not directly addressed in the seminars, but were merely touched on and not deeply explored. This frustration reached such a stage during the second seminar (strategy planning) that SHL, with CNA, needed to spend Saturday night re-directing the focus of the last day of the seminar; and bring in the possibility for the participants to discuss and offer their experience with SHL and in the field of youth-work in BiH.

This point is of great interest to CNA, who as a work method and philosophy, focus seminars on the needs of the participants, and very much measure the 'results' of a seminar on how and whether these needs were fulfilled. With this series of evaluation and strategy planning seminars the need was focused more on that of the organisers - on collecting defined information. This very much brings into question whether the CNA seminar method is appropriate for the gathering of this specific type of information.

On the other side however, the workshop methodology very much kept the participants interested in what could otherwise be a very dry subject to discuss for 2 days in a row, which was a point voiced by participants in evaluation of the methods. One of the workshops did not succeed, due to the fact that it was too general and did not have enough time to progress comfortably. This point is an aspect of the experimental nature of the seminars. The need for specific information to be collected, rather than the sharing of information that is important for the participants, very much effected the development of the workshop agenda. This necessity to focus on gathering defined information, and a lack of experience in building up the necessary steps to draw out this information, resulted in a workshop which was not easy for participants to give us the information. An alternative workshop was offered and participants immediately voiced their approval at the change.

A workshop seminar does create expectations from its participants, which include that, their wants and needs will be written into the programme. Despite how good particular workshops may be at gathering information, it is still in question whether bringing people to a seminar to participate in workshops that explore only the information that the evaluators want to discuss, is fair to the participants and healthy for future co-operation between them and the evaluating group. In retrospect it makes sense to leave one day of the weekend open to deal with issues that the participants wish to discuss or explore further. But this does not deal with prominent points that were raised during the seminars. The day with a set agenda may still be considered too 'global' or too far from what the participants want to do, to make it feel truly worthwhile for them to attend. And the possibility that participants feel they are hearing and discussing points they already know is difficult to avoid in an evaluation.

At this stage, in which the information gathered has not yet been fully analyzed, CNA can say that a lot of information has been gathered that is of great use to SHL. However, whether or not this is the best way to gather it, deserves long discussion.

Training: Basics in Nonviolent Conflict Transformation
Kiseljak, 25th February - 6th March 2000

Training Basics in Nonviolent Conflict Transformation was held from 25.2 - 6.3.2000. In Kiseljak. The training was organised and implemented by CNA Sarajevo.

The participants came from different towns of the countries/regions of former Yugoslavia:
BiH (including both entities): Banja Luka, Mostar, Busovaca, Sarajevo, and Zavidovici
Croatia: Zagreb, Vukovar
FRY (including Montenegro, Vojvodina and Serbia proper): Podgorica, Sombor, Indjija, Pancevo, Beograd, and Novi Pazar
Macedonia: Skopje, Ohrid
Seven women and eight men participated. The age was between 23 and 34 years, with an average age of 26.5.

Some of the organisations that participants are active in:
Bureau for Concientious Objection, Children "Playshops" - Busovaca (Djecije igraonice), Citizen's Community for help to children and youth SRCEM, Centre for Information and Support to local NGOs, Centre for youth - Zavidovici, Movement for Peace - Pancevo, Ravangrad - Sombor, Urban-in, Association for democratic prosperity ZID, The First Children Embassy in the World MEDJASI, Centre for Peace Studies -- Zagreb, Project of Citizen Democratic Initiative.
Apart from activities in the organisations that participants came from, some of them are working as teachers or political activists.

CNA received approximately 60-70 applications for this training, and 20 participants were chosen. Unfortunately some of them cancelled one day before the training started, and one person cancelled on the very last day, before we left for Kiseljak. That situation made it impossible for CNA to find a replacement for those people, so we ended up with 15 participants. Two persons who cancelled were applicants from Kosovo who did not feel safe to travel because of the difficult situation in there.

This was the first time that CNA organised a training in the part of BiH where Croats are in majority, and it is also the first time that people from these areas applied for a training and participated in it. Also, for the first time we had participants from Sandzak (a part of Serbia where Bosniaks are in majority) and Vojvodina.

The training team consisted of three CNA team members and Dejan Videnovic who was a participant on the CNA Training for Trainers programme. This was a continuation of the CNA policy to support participants from the Training for Trainers programme and to give them a chance to gather more experience as members of a training team on longer trainings.

The training was financed by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the German Advisory Office - GTZ, the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the Know How Fund and OSCE Civil Society Department.

Themes that we worked on:
- getting to know each other
- nonviolent communication
- team work
- decision making
- understanding of conflict
- perception
- violence/nonviolence
- differences
- prejudice
- gender
- power
- leadership
- constructive dealing with conflict
- identity
The workshops mostly lasted longer than they were planned to because interesting discussions were opened and the training team and participants did not want to cut them.

It is very hard to highlight what was especially interesting or important, as there were so many interesting and important things. From the very beginning the themes and exercises that were done raised strong emotions, discussions and requestioning. The training team's impression was that the group was ready to deal with many questions and that it was motivated and interested.

During the workshop on the theme 'understanding of conflict' we worked on processes in conflict, how conflict appears, what we show in them and what we hide, how constructive conflict can be and why/how conflict may turn into violence. The simulation (role-play) of a conflict situation that was done raised strong emotions, as it happened to turn into a violent scene. It also happened that during the role play the door of the working room was broken, and that added some reality, with the director of the hotel who came in screaming that he was going to call the police (luckily, he cooled down and we could talk to him). Everybody felt very bad and the atmosphere was hard and intense. But despite that everybody wanted to discuss the whole situation and to deal with it. It was a very hard experience for all of us, but as conflict can be very constructive and one can gain a lot from it - which's exactly what happened in this situation. The following discussion was an analysis of the processes within the exercise, connecting them with the processes in real life, on a personal, but also a political level.

This mutual experience influenced forming the group and trust building, and due to that, the further work. (Afterwards, during the meeting with the director of the hotel, in a calm and constructive atmosphere, he made a joke: "I hope you will not exercise shooting tomorrow. ")

The group was ready to confront all the themes of the training. Themes that the training team perceived as very hard for the group to deal with were national prejudices, national identity, gender and differences.

On the last working day, before lunch, evaluation questionnaires were given to participants and it is our new experience that most of the participants signed their questionnaires even if they could be anonymous. On the last afternoon we also had a verbal evaluation of the training.

Some of the statements in the verbal evaluation of the training:

- I learnt many things. Actually many of them I knew before, but I did not know how to use them, and I got that here.
- I still need to train myself in my surroundings, and then I will say what I still miss.
- The main thing is that some questions are now open for me, as I got so many different opinions I did not know.
- I got many themes to think about. I did not get men's view of the role of sexes in the society. I did not talk to people so open and simple like now for who knows how much time.
- I can say I gained a lot. I'm sorry because we did not have more time for some of the themes, but maybe that would mean to throw out some themes from the 10-day training, and I could not through out any of them.
- I got a motive to work on myself, a motive to work on these themes.
- I gained a lot. I became aware of some of my behaviours, and became more sensitive for kinds of non-physical every-day violence. I did not get definitions, finished (closed) answers and some full stops, and I am glad because of that.
- I want to thank training team and participants. I got something, but that is not for sure something that I expected. I jumped over 3 or four steps of my life in 10 days, and otherwise I would need much more time for that. Thank you once more.
- I got a better perception of relations and of my role in all of that. I got many questions, on some I see answers, but some of them are still open.
- In some moments I felt some of my weaknesses and disadvantages. For the first time I talked in front of 20 people who really listened to me.
- At the very beginning I stepped back and took a role of observer. And later I felt that I made a mistake, as I did not feel as a member of the group. Thanks to the group and the team that they accepted and included me. I have learnt a lot.
- The first 2-3 days only few people talked, but then we learnt to listen. I listened all 10 days, which is new experience for me. Some people gained a lot because they started to talk, and some gained because they became quieter.


The training team evaluation of the training was very extensive. It included evaluation of single blocks and workshops that were done, the group and group work, the training team, what we are satisfied with, what was difficult/nice/new, organisational aspects and learning points from the training, with special focus on learning points for future basic trainings and training for trainers programme. Generally the training team is very satisfied with the training, with the group, with the work that was done and with teamwork in the training team.

Concerning the group of participants, the difficulties that were present were a lack of involvement of some of the participants in the first part of the training, some individuals very often dominated the group work, generally women were more quiet and even looked passive sometimes. Despite the difficulties, the group is perceived as very interested in the work and the themes. More than half of the group could be potential participants for the Training for Trainers programme, and some of the participants already expressed their interest and wish to be involved in this programme. The team was also satisfied with the fact that most of the participants had very active discussions during informal time connected with the themes that we worked on, and with the political dimension that has been brought up in the workshops. Many participants expressed a need for organising this kind of training in their environment and organisations that they are active in.

Documentation of the training "MRDNI MALO!" in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language includes detailed information on workshops, minutes of discussions and evaluation. It is available on request directly from CNA.

CNA looking for International Volunteer

CNA is planning to include one person who does not come from the Bosnian, Serbian or Croatian speech area. The need for an international person in CNA is an important issue for the work because of bringing different aspects into the teamwork. We have set up the criteria that this person should have, and we are presently contacting international organisations which finance or/and send volunteers for a specific time scale.


3. WORK PLAN

Work plan (March - Aug 2000)

The CNA team intend to implement the following plan for the next 6 months. Due to the fact that CNA is in the process of localisation as well as the evaluation of the three-year work of CNA, the plan includes the following activities:
* CNA evaluation
* Pilot - project -International Balkan Training
* Training for trainers III part (Program 1998/99)
* Publishing of Manual
* Start of the Program Training for Trainers 2000
* Process of the Transfer of CNA

Work plan (Sept. 2000 - Aug 2001)

By August 2000 CNA will be localised, and so it is necessary to prepare a plan for the following work period of CNA as a local organisation. CNA local will continue with the work on similar programs and keep on following the same philosophy of active nonviolence.
Work plan:
* Finishing of the Program Training for Trainers 2000
* Networking meeting of trainers from Ex-Yugoslavia
* Basic trainings (2)
* Start preparation of the III Program Training for Trainers


4. DIFFICULTIES

Since November 1999 up to March 2000, CNA have had difficulties in raising funds for training seminars because most donors that we have contacted still do not have information that they can give us about their budget for NGO projects. This has given CNA a lot of pressure and extra work on fundraising.


5. VISITORS

Visit of Martina Fisher and Julie Tumler in CNA

21.01.2000 Martina Fischer and Julie Tumbler visited CNA. They came from Germany in the name of the 'Gesellschaft fuer technische Zusammenarbeit'- GTZ - State Agency for technical Cooperation, from Eschborn (Germany) to implement a study on the development and empowerment of the peace lobby in BiH, with a special accent on youth work. They visited CNA as well as several different local and international NGO's and foundations in BiH. The meeting discussed local and international NGO activities in BiH, which are working with youth, trade unions and foundations.

Visit of Peter Wingert from the SWR ( TV Station ) from Germany
for the film "Hope for the Balkan"

On 13.12.1999 CNA had a meeting with Peter Wingert who works as a journalist for SWR- TV Station in south Germany. The subject of our conversation was a film that Peter Wingert wants to make, called "Hope for the Balkan". Within the topic of the film he will present the work of several groups who are active in peace work in the wider Balkan region. The movie should be finished by April 2000. CNA was asked and agreed to participate in the film with interviews or filming some of our work. We agreed with Peter Wingert that he would make interviews with some members of CNA.

Visit of volunteers from Friedenskreis Halle - Jajce

On 25.01.2000 volunteers from the Centre for Education and Meetings - Jajce, and the project office of Friedenskreis Halle e.V. (FK Halle) visited CNA. At the meeting we exchanged information about what both organisations are doing and also what the plans are for the future. Within this we discussed the possibility of common projects and exchange of regular information about trainings and seminars.

Visit of Jelena Goronja

At the beginning of February we were visited by Jelena Goronja, a 17-year-old high-school student from Kakanj (small town in BiH). A few weeks before the visit we received an email from her, in which she was saying that she found our web-site, and that she would like to meet us because she has chosen to do her final examination scholarly work (in the secondary school) on the theme of Nonviolent conflict resolution.

During the meeting we discussed many questions on nonviolence, conflict and communication. Jelena expressed her surprise that we were ready to discuss with her those issues, and not just to hand out to her books she might find useful, as the other organisations she visited did. She also expressed her hope that her scholarly work will not finish in some drawer at her secondary school, but will move some issues, and maybe open some discussions at least in her school-community. We offered her any kind of support it is possible for CNA to give, and which she sees as useful. For example feedback on things she is going to write, and more discussion with us on questions she may have.



Adnan Hasanbegovic
Ivana Franovic
Cara Gibney
Jasmin Redzepovic
Nenad Vukosavljevic

For Centar za nenasilnu akciju
Center for Nonviolent Action
Project office of KURVE Wustrow

In Sarajevo, March 2000


Many thanks to all of those who are supporting the project of KURVE
Wustrow - Centar za nenasilnu akciju, financially or through their
engagement that made this project possible and helped to secure its
implementation and all of those who are with us in their thoughts.

Special thanks to:

Agency for Personal Services Overseas - Ireland
Aktionsgemeinschaft Dienst fuer den Frieden - AGDF
Berghof Stiftung & Berghof Institute for creative conflict menagement
CNA Support group Hamburg
Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft Vereinigte Kriegsgegner - DFG VK Bielefeld
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung - Regionalbuero Sarajevo
Deutsches Beratungsbuero - Sarajevo
Internationale Aerzte zur Verhuetung des Atomkrieges - IPPNW Deutschland
International Voluntary Service - Belfast
Know How Fund
Menschenrechtsreferat des Diakonischen Werkes
OSCE Democratisation office, Sarajevo
Quaker Peace and Service
Royal Norwegian Embassy - Sarajevo
Schueler 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.


This report may be distributed freely with the aknowledgement of the source. 
© CNA