Youth Initiative for Human Rights in the Western Balkans receives prestigious award
On Wednesday, the Aachen Peace Prize announced this year's winners: The award goes to the Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR) from Serbia, a long-standing partner organization of forumZFD. The Organisation 'Omas gegen Rechts' (Grannies against the Right) will be honored this year as well. The award ceremony will take place on September 1 in Aachen.
YIHR receives the prize for its commitment to peace and human rights in the Western Balkans. For over 20 years, it has been offering exchange programs for young people in Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Aachen Peace Prize explains its decision to award YIHR by stating that the organization empowers young people to shape their future and create a more democratic society in a region where nationalism and revisionism are still prevalent. According to the Aachen Peace Prize, this commitment could also serve as a role model for us in Germany to counter the rise of right-wing radicalism.
This award is highly deserved and an important signal of support for an initiative that is facing a lot of headwind from nationalist forces in the region.
"I am delighted for the Youth Initiative for Human Rights team and offer my warmest congratulations," said Nataša, who has been working closely with YIHR for more than ten years. "I believe that our crucial contribution to peace in this region is to address the wars of the 1990s. The facts must be heard, especially among the younger generation. YIHR makes an incredibly important contribution to this."
The regional network aims to promote dialogue between young people across national borders and to create a space for discussions on controversial topics. It is particularly committed to dealing with the Balkan wars. In countries such as Serbia, where dealing with the past is intentionally suppressed and especially young people are not familiar with the war crimes of the 1990s, this work plays a crucial role, according to Sofija Todorović, YIHR's programme director: "We believe that democracy in every single country in the Western Balkans is incomplete without dealing with the past."
Long-standing partnership
Together, YIHR and forumZFD organize an annual commemorative event in the Serbian capital Belgrade to mark the genocide in Srebrenica, which is denied by large parts of politics and society in Serbia. Together with other partners, they have also initiated the cultural festival "Miredita - Dobar dan" - "Good day" in Albanian or Serbian. The festival presents Kosovan culture in Belgrade and Serbian culture in the Kosovan capital Pristina.
Last year, on the day before the festival began in Pristina, many young people were killed in a terrible shooting in Serbia. In response, visitors of the festival in Pristina, Kosovo, lit candles to show their sympathy for the children, their parents and the Serbian society. "For me, this was a small contribution to a better understanding and more empathy between two societies that are still enemies," summarizes Nataša Govedarica.
