Support Peacebuilding in Bosnia

What We Do in Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH)

  1. Lead programs and trainings for local Bosnian participants, including intergroup peacebuilding workshops, trauma sensitivity and healing courses, and peacebuilding skill development.

  2. Partner with Bosnian peacebuilders from various ethno-religious backgrounds to support existing peace programs and develop new ones to bridge the gap across ethnic and religious divides. We support our local partners by writing grants, doing monitoring and evaluation work, and initiating new courses and collaborative projects.

  3. Facilitate intensive learning experiences and peace camps for combined international and local groups to learn from local peacebuilders. We delve into topics like trauma, identity, interreligious collaboration, group narratives, and practical skills, and we help international visitors apply peacebuilding lessons they learn in Bosnia to their home contexts.

  4. Form Protestant Christians for peacebuilding in BiH, across the Balkans, and throughout Europe. We speak and lead workshops about peace-oriented theology, teach practical peacebuilding skills, and provide opportunities for local Christians to get involved in peace work. These workshops include leaders of Protestant churches, organizations, and networks and range from one session to several-day conferences.

How to Get Involved

Come in person

Join online

Sustain our work through monthly or one-time donations

Every donation sustains our ongoing peacebuilding programs and local Bosnian staff, including scholarships for local participants to join in peacebuilding trainings and honorariums for workshop leaders and peacebuilding trainers.

+ Bosnia & Herzegovina - A Brief Introduction

Three decades after the Dayton Agreement ended Europe’s most devastating conflict since World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina continues to be plagued by divisive, identity-based politics and is socially divided along wartime identities and narratives. Horrors were inflicted on all groups, although not in equal measure, and included ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, half the population displaced, and genocide, all of which have left the country battling with competing narratives of victimization and unaddressed trauma. Religious groups in BiH have contributed both to peacebuilding efforts and to an atmosphere of exclusion, distrust, and violence, but some have also been pivotal in catalyzing and sustaining progressive peacebuilding efforts. Religious identities have played a role in ethnic identity formation, including the sacralization of nationality which legitimizes intolerance toward other groups. However, BiH also has a long history of inter-religious respect and collaboration across differences. For that reason, BiH is home to a unique generation of peacebuilders who grew up with a deep affection for their religious neighbors but who have also been dealing with alternative facts, dueling narratives, inflammatory rhetoric, and the political weaponization of religious and ethnic identities for the past 25 years. Their wisdom and experiences in peacebuilding across ethnic and religious boundaries can inspire and shape peacebuilding approaches elsewhere in the world.

+ Our Local Partners

Peace Catalyst BiH staff have developed partnerships and working relationships with a variety of local organizations to engage in peacebuilding work, including Mali Koraci (Small Steps), The Peace Academy Foundation, Center for Peacebuilding (CIM), The Network for Peacebuilding, PRONI Center for Youth Development, and Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR). We also work with local religious leaders, churches, and mosques to introduce peace-oriented themes and skills into religious spaces. We continue to cultivate relationships with international Christian groups in order to advocate for peace-oriented theology and approaches in Christian work and ministry and to train Christians to get involved in peacebuilding, including the European Evangelical Alliance (EEA), The World Evangelical Alliance’s Peace & Reconciliation Network (PRN), Youth With a Mission (YWAM), and Baptists Church networks. Peace Catalyst BiH has also partnered with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies (Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame) to host international trips.

+ What People Are Saying

"Trauma is ubiquitous, and awareness of the ways it impacts individuals and communities is essential for anyone who works with people. This course has raised my awareness to be better able to support not only my community work but also to appreciate more fully the stories of my own family and friends." -UK Leadership Coach & Trauma-Sensitive Peacebuilding course participant

“Please bring more self-reflective and minority voices from the West. Their perspectives are so valuable to us in BiH to see how the challenges we face are so similar everywhere.” -2019 Catalyze Serb participant

”This type of collaborative trip is the way of the future. We must all learn to live out the Gospel in this way everywhere.” -American Church Leader & 2019 Catalyze participant

“My life changed from the experiences I had in Sarajevo” -Catalyze 2019 participant

“My trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina was easily the most impactful experience in my academic career. Why? - the people. Our facilitators, guest speakers, local academic counterparts, and their families went above and beyond to welcome us to their beautiful and complex country. To spend an entire week with a truly generous, humble, kind, and courageous group of people, who acknowledge strength in religious diversity, was a testament to peacebuilding in action. The memories and friends I made on this trip will stay with me, and I am honored and privileged to have had the opportunity to engage equitably as an ally, partner, and learner - and not as an outside expert or spectator. I look forward to applying the lessons learnt, to my career in peacebuilding and global affairs.” -Notre Dame student & & participant in the 2022 Nanovic Institute faculty-led student trip

Please consider giving in any of the following ways:

  • A donation of $30 equals the cost of a scholarship for a local Bosnian participant to join a peacebuilding training or activity.

  • A donation of $250 equals trainer costs for a half-day workshop on trauma healing.

  • A donation of $350 equals the cost of a scholarship for a weeklong immersive peacebuilding training for a Bosnian participant (see this link for lots of great quotes from Bosnian locals who were impacted by a 2019 in-person trip).

 

Peace Catalyst BiH Staff

Bryan Carey

PCI Director of International Partnerships

Bryan hosts workshops, conducts trainings, and teaches about peace-oriented theology, peacebuilding practices, and how Christian groups can get involved in community peacebuilding. He regularly organizes learning experiences for international and regional Balkan participants that cultivate understanding and empathy for the narratives of other groups, ultimately with the aim to deepen relational connections that allow for collaborative work.

Go to the Careys' staff profile to read more, connect, or contribute to their work.

Stephanie Carey

PCI Grants & MEL Manager | Program Director

Stephanie manages PCI’s grant and monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) processes and leads staff to collect project outcomes through an approach called Outcome Harvesting. Locally, she supports a variety of peacebuilding organizations by contributing to grant-dependent monitoring and evaluation needs for various peace projects in BiH. She also contributes to local program development with technical, logistic, and communications support.

Go to the Careys' staff profile to read more, connect, or contribute to their work.

Mirela Popaja-Hadžić

PCI Program Director, Therapist, Trauma Trainer

Mirela coordinates peacebuilding programs and trainings and works as an affilitate trainer with Trauma Free World. She is currently specializing in Gestalt Psychotherapy to become a trauma therapist to more effectively address the unengaged trauma manifesting in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as depression, anxiety, and addictions. She has over 10 years of experience working in both for-profit and non-profit sectors in project coordination, program management, training, facilitation, and translation.

Go to Mirela's staff profile to read more, connect, or contribute to her work.

Julia Davies

PCI BiH Intern

Julia Davies is a recent graduate of Ohio State University, where she spent a three-month study abroad program in Rwanda working with youth groups and women’s associations addressing transgenerational trauma and promoting forgiveness. She is eager to immerse herself in Bosnian language, culture, and history; partner with a local peacebuilding organization; and continue to explore her research from Rwanda on collective memory and genocide memorials and their role in promoting reconciliation.

Go to Julia's intern profile to read more, connect, or contribute to her work.

 

Peace Catalyst BiH Lead Partners

 

Amela Puljek-Shank

Lead Instructor for Trauma Sensitive Peacebuilding Course

After living through the war in Bosnia & Herzegovina as an internally displaced person, Amela Puljek-Shank has worked for almost three decades in the field of peacebuilding as a facilitator, trainer, and manager. She specializes in trauma healing and recovery and works with The Peace Academy in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina. She also works as a consultant to international organizations in the areas of organizational development, capacity building, strategic planning, and developing and leading trainings and evaluation processes. She has created and led over 80 interactive trainings on the topics of trauma and reconciliation, conflict transformation, nonviolent communication, resilience, self-care and care for others.

Go to the Trauma Sensitive Peacebuilding page to learn more or to donate to the program to support our scholarship fund.

Orhan Hadžagić

Local Program Lead for the Catalyze Peacebuilding Pilgrimage

Orhan is a Balkan journalist, entrepreneur, translator, and political analyst. He enjoys hosting learning groups, working as a tour guide, and connecting diverse communities together for dialogue, to build understanding, and work for peace across group divisions. He was part of the core team that designed and continues to co-lead and facilitate the Catalyze Peacebuilding Pilgrimage.

Go to the Catalyze peacebuilding pilgrimage page to learn more or to donate to the program to support our scholarship fund.

Amra Pandžo

Local Program Lead for the Catalyze Peacebuilding Pilgrimage

Amra has over twenty years of experience building peace and trust in Bosnia & Herzegovina after the Bosnian War. As founder of Mali Koraci (Small Steps), Amra has led numerous trainings on non-violent communication, and she works with educators, religious leaders, and institutions to promote the nonviolent conflict transformation, teach about dialogue and social change, and prevent religiously-motivated violent extremism. Pandžo identifies her Islamic faith as the primary motivation for her peace work.

Go to the Catalyze peacebuilding pilgrimage page to learn more or to donate to the program to support our scholarship fund.

 
 

MORE PROJECTS