A group of fifty high school history teachers from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Serbia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) participated in a three-day seminar organised by the Anne Frank House in Zagreb, Croatia, in cooperation with its local partner organisations from BiH, Croatia, FYROM and Serbia.
The seminar was organised as part of the project “Historija, Istorija, Povjest” (words meaning “history” in Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian) which promotes innovative educational methodologies. The main goal of this project is to encourage discussion about the recent history of nationalism, discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping in the former Yugoslavia and stimulate conversation and critical thinking on these topics between high school teachers and their students.
On the first day of the seminar, ICTY Registry Liaison Officer Almir Alić held a lecture on the work of the Tribunal and its role in the transitional justice process in the region with a view to encourage teachers to talk to their students about this topic. The attending teachers showed great interest in issues related to war crimes trials within the wider context of facing the past. They also found the experiences of the Outreach Programme in its Youth Outreach Project, which has reached over 8.000 high school and university students from the countries of former Yugoslavia, highly valuable in understanding the importance of including younger generations in the transitional justice process.
ICTY’s Outreach Programme is supporting the project “Historija, Istorija, Povjest” as part of its completion strategy which aims to strengthen local stakeholders and transfer its project activities to partners in the region.