Bulevar Mese Selimoivca 35
71000 Sarajevo
Bosnia & Herzegovina
- Youth and education
Youth for Peace is a youth-founded and youth-led organization; the main, governing body of the organization is the Assembly composed of 21 people, while the executive level of the Organization is led by the President and assisted by the Board of Coordinators. The number of staff employed depends on the volume of activities, Youth for Peace currently employs three persons.
The Organization has been financed by various institutions from the region, Europe and worldwide; fundraising is project-oriented and the average budget for previous years is around 80.000€.
Youth for Peace is focused on the implementation of country and regional educational activities while its international reach realizes through active membership in United Religions Initiative (URI) and Religions for Peace (RfP) networks.
The target group of YfP work are mainly young people, aged 14 to 35, being reached through seminars, trainers and exchanges, within a non-formal sector of education.
We, young people of diverse religions and spiritual expressions, coming from different cultures and tradition backgrounds from Bosnia and Herzegovina, have established Youth for Peace to promote dialogue, interfaith and inter-ethnic cooperation, to end all kinds of violence and to create a culture of peace and justice for youth.
We are striving to have empowered young people who will be initiators and promoters of positive changes and will create a better future through building a society of equal opportunities without prejudices.
Youth for Peace is actively facilitating peacebuilding work in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region designed to combat divisions strongly entrenched in nationalistic, extremist narratives. Creating an alternative narrative to the divisive and destructive situation, directly caused by the events from the past, is the greatest challenge of peacebuilding work. Reaching out to young people, listening to their voices, giving them a seat at the table, addressing their concerns, providing them with necessary knowledge and skills for active engagement in society and enhancement of peacebuilding through non-formal educational methods – that’s the heart of our existence and work.
Activities that we conduct are designed for combating prejudices and stereotypes, defending human rights, advocating for democratic values and embracing freedom, enforcing equity and equality on all grounds: gender, religion, ethnicity, political affiliation, disabilities. An important aspect of our work is leaving no one behind and ensuring equal opportunities and access for everyone. Bosnia and Herzegovina has a chance to progress only if the population of the country understands and reinforces accountability and responsibility for the necessary change that has to happen. Our task is to motivate and inspire young people to understand the importance of their role in society and its progress. Through our work we mobilize young people and encourage them to take active participation in creating the future of the country and the region, stressing the uncertainty of the future without them and their participation.
Youth for Peace is an organization that is highly recognized among youth in BiH and by now has reached several thousand of young people inside the country, but also in the region and internationally. Our work is recognized within the youth population, but also by other stakeholders such as other civil society organizations, schools, foreign embassies etc. Together with other members of the network, we can contribute to strengthening the position and influence of the Foundation in the country and spread the word about its work. Besides that, many young people who are reached through our work can become familiarized with the programs ALF offers and can benefit from them. Youth for Peace also has a strong social media presence and using these channels the work of ALF could be promoted and become more visible among the general audience in the country.
As an organization, we are primarily focused on providing educations to youth through non-formal education, but advocacy and lobbying are also an important parts of the work being done. In cooperation with other members of the network, YfP will contribute to strengthening democratic processes and human rights protection, promoting intercultural cooperation, fostering community development as well as promoting, but also modelling sustainable development through supporting the implementation of sustainable development goals.
Besides that, we are part of other networks such as the United Religions Initiative and Religions for Peace, thus having reach to organizations worldwide. The work of ALF can be presented to our international partners and can result in new initiatives and collaborations.
ALF offers a great opportunity for networking and establishing new partnerships across the EuroMed region. Youth for Peace operates on local, regional, and international level already, but new connections and cooperation is always a necessity in our globalized world, where actions in one place influence actions and events in other places. Being established in BiH and providing education to young people mostly on topics of peace education, culture of remembrance, dealing with the past, but also dialogue and inter-religious and inter-ethnic work the organization can find valuable partners among those belonging to the network, since many members within the network are coming either from conflict or post-conflict areas. On the other hand, the ALF gathers partners from all across the Europe and BiH is a country on its way towards becoming an EU member so having the opportunity to access and work with other civil society actors from European countries is always an advantage. ALF also offers different kinds of support to its members like participation in specific programs and financial support for the projects. Members of Youth for Peace and our participants would have an opportunity to join some of the programs and build their own skills, but also Youth for Peace will have an opportunity to raise additional funds for the projects and reach even more young people not just in BiH, but also in the region and globally.
We, in Youth for Peace, see this network as a valuable resource to help us grow, establish new connections, widen the scope and area of our work, but also to find valuable and trustworthy partners for long term cooperation, since members of the network cherish similar values and strive to improve societies where they work and operate. Finding reliable partners in today’s world is not always an easy task, but we believe this network could provide us with this opportunity.