Alumni Impact: Peace by Piece
Ema, an alumna of the Youth Leadership Program with Bosnia and Herzegovina, shares her incredible experiences organizing a peace and reconciliation course for young people from around the world.
Guest Post by Emina-Ema Ibišević
Participants and two organizers of the short course "Bring It Up BiH" that took place last fall (Mostar, October 2013)
"Piece by Peace" Organization Team on UWCiM prom 2014 (From left to right: Nouf K. Saleh, Malak N. AlSayyad, Emina-Ema Ibisevic, Bono Siebelink, Ruby Ellen Tode, Nadia Asri)
WOW! It has been over one and a half years since I've participated in Youth Leadership Program in the USA. Time is passing by so fast, but I still remember bits I learned while participating. Those bits that helped me to figure out the way I want to develop myself in the future.
I am Emina-Ema Ibišević, 17, and just finished a first year at United World College in Mostar. UWC movement’s mission is to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and sustainable future. Being a part of such movement is an honor. I see myself changed throughout this first year of UWC. I see this mission not just being something I learn while being in my college. This mission has become the force in my life.
I live in the environment that, even 20 years after war, stumbles upon many difficulties caused by it. Seeing many conflicts stayed unresolved, firstly in my country and then all around the world, I wished to empower young people with skills of conflict resolution that they could apply to their conflicted communities. In the first term, I did a project with similar goal, but focused mainly on young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
One of the facilitators; discussion about the history and current situation of BiH ("Bring It Up BiH, Mostar, October 2014)
But this summer, with my friends from the College, I am implementing a UWC Short Course “Peace by Piece” focusing on people from different conflicted areas. We have variety of participants coming from all over the world: Egypt, Yemen, Israel, India, Pakistan, Mexico, BiH, Albania, UK and Portugal. We chose amazing young people based on detailed application and they will all meet in Mostar in August 2014. With their will for reconciliation in their communities and bright minds we will discuss about different conflicts, their causes and ways of resolving the conflicts.
Relaxing and playing games after the exhausting day in Sarajevo ("Bring It Up BiH", Sarajevo, October 2013)
During YLP, I learned all different aspects of how leadership works and about being a leader. As well, I was taught how to develop that little seed of idea in my head to bigger projects. Learning things such as project development or budget planning helped me a lot while trying to make this project grow. In YLP I learned how to be a leader, but I never thought how it was to be in organization or leading team of a project. Being a leader with five other people is not an easy job. When there are 6 amazingly bright minds coming from different perspectives, it’s really hard to meet halfway and say what idea was “the best”. This was definitely one of the biggest challenges throughout the planning and setting everything up. But this is not a bad thing at all. Something that I learned during YLP when I was surrounded with another 17 young leaders was that having different and even opposing opinions is a beautiful and inspiring experience.
Another difficulty that we faced was getting the funds. A 15 days short course including 20 participants, 6 organizers and 2 external facilitators is a big project for high school standards which requires not only patience and full time work, but as well funds. When we started looking for variety of organizations or foundations that would support our project, most of them already exhausted their sources for summer project. Luckily, a good friend of our school and as well part of German national committee loved the idea of short course and was willing to support us.
Closing Ceremony of the short course "Bring It Up BiH" - One of the organizers is giving diploma to the participant from India (Mostar, October 2014)
Another reason I wanted to implement this project, but on larger scale, was the feeling I got after the first short course was over. I remember one of our participants saying: “Before this program I was a passive citizen thinking I can’t make a difference, but now I am ready to go back home and start working on my community!” After she said that I realized what we actually did. The feeling of changing somebody in a really good way is mind-blowing. At that moment I realized how blessed I was to be able to share my knowledge with others and see how others are accepting it. This change is what I and my colleagues expect to see in our participants. We are aiming to empower our participants, so they can go back to their communities and start working on reconciliation!
Emina-Ema Ibišević was a participant in the FIUTS Youth Leadership Program with Bosnia and Herzegovina in Fall 2012. We are so proud of the amazing work that she and her peers are doing to serve their communities and the world! Learn more about Peace by Piece here.
The Youth Leadership Program with Bosnia and Herzegovina is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. Learn more here, and click here for details on how to host a participating student or teacher for a homestay during the next program this Fall.