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Five years ago,
there was no overwhelming desire for
dialogue among the youth of the two
societies. It was foreign to them to
sign up for anything that had to do
with Serbo-Albanian relations. In
addition, the media and political
campaign did not bother us. However,
over time, with great effort, we
have initiated many different
artistic and cultural activities,
and so far have organized seven
seminars and art colonies. The youth
networks that were created during
these processes were our main tool
for popularizing the program, so
much more is known about it today
than when we started. Now hundreds
of young people sign up for each new
cycle of the program, which I think
is a great success.
One of the
fundamental reasons for starting the
program is to develop dialogues and
renew old ones, but also to create
new connections, especially among
young people. A great success is
every opportunity for young people
to visit Belgrade / Priština for the
first time, to meet young people
from Serbia / Kosovo, to learn about
mutual societies, to build
friendships, to break prejudices and
to start thinking about future
cooperation. At the same time, the
organization of seminars and the
results of their joint artistic work
implies that many other
institutions, organizations,
museums, galleries and faculties
also open our doors. In this way,
the program ceases to be a personal
matter of the participants, and by
entering the institutions, we are
opening the way for institutional
cooperation outside this program.
Until state, cultural and artistic
institutions begin to initiate such
discussions and youth work together,
it is up to us from the civil sector
to break that ice instead. The
participants have realized many
different performances so far in
Belgrade and Priština, presented
numerous multimedia installations
and other works at joint
exhibitions, created joint short
films and plays.
The young people
who undergo our program were born
during or after the end of the war
in Kosovo. Unfortunately, most of
them, especially young people from
Serbia, know almost nothing about
the wars of the 1990s. Victims are
narratives in which they grew up and
continue to live in ethnocentric
societies such as Serbia and Kosovo.
Establishing this kind of
intercultural dialogue in
post-conflict societies is one way
to start a conversation with young
people on dealing with the past of
war. And that is one of the
important and fundamental goals of
our program. We want to look to a
brighter future, but we are aware
that without, often excruciatingly,
looking into the dark past and
distancing ourselves from it, our
future will not be any different.
That is why I think programs like
this are very important, and I
always support colleagues who have
led similar initiatives before and
now.
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