Youth Initiative

Bosnia remains badly scarred from the war that ended a dozen years ago. Children are particularly fragile, perhaps none more so than the 108,000 displaced from their homes during the conflict. Many now feel marginalized in their adopted communities, in part because of the segregation of Bosniak, Croat, and Serb children and teachers in local schools. “The separate schools and curricula, which began as a way to encourage returns of refugees, have evolved into segregation and wasteful duplication that teach a new generation their parents’ nationalist hatreds,” writes the International Crisis Group (ICG) in a report released in February. The report stresses that Bosnia’s education must improve for state building and peace to succeed. CBD agrees with these findings, and after a recent visit to several youth pro grams in Bosnia, we see the need for a nationwide initiative to support local youth programs throughout the country. CBD has identified two such programs, Better Tomorrow from Tuzla and Pinkland from Banovici, that address the needs of Bosnian youth but lack resources to effectively move forward. CBD is helping these two programs strengthen their organizational capacities with summer interns and program equipment. With support from the Eisenhower Foundation and an endorsement from the Bosnian Ambassador to the U.S., CBD is now in the early phase of planning in Bosnia a National Youth Initiative that will help strengthen these and other effective local programs over the next five years.

Click below to read about our work with two dynamic youth programs:
Balkan Kids Playground
Pinkland