Balkan visitors impressed by Derry Model

Nobel Laureate Albert Schweitzer famously said: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”

And, listening to the experiences of Sofija Todorovic, programme director of Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Serbia, who participated in the city’s first Peace and Conflict International Summer School, Derry is setting a very good example.

Chatting to Derry Now following a panel discussion in Ulster University, Magee, Sofija characterised the level of dialogue as “very impressive”.

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She said: “I really enjoyed the discussion with different voices, from different communities, representatives of opposite sides. The level of the dialogue they were able to have with each other was very impressive. This is something we in the Balkans are still striving to achieve.

“For me, the level of the dialogue, their calmness while sharing completely different perspectives, without anyone showing he or she felt attacked by the perspective of the other or that his or her perspective was diminishing her trauma or her victim experience, that was something very valuable.

“Because, usually when you work on these topics in the Balkans, it can feel a bit hopeless. At the end of the day, politicians there do not speak to one another, or rather they have ‘facilitated dialogue’, which is quite complicated.

“For me seeing that this kind of dialogue can happen between the people who were also engaged in the conflict, that really, gives me hope. The panellists actually shared some very useful strategies on how they did it, both within their own community but also by creating ties with another community.”

Sofija’s colleague Marigona Shabiu, executive director of Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Kosovo, gave an extremely insightful perspective on peacebuilding and conflict transformation.

“We have a responsibility to do this for ourselves and for the others, for your parents, for your families but also for your community,” she said. “We want to instil the sense of responsibility that we have to contribute to this. Peace, human rights, reconciliation is not going to show up anywhere by themselves. We all have to do our part.

“This is something we have inherited. It is a problem we as the younger generations, we did not cause it, we did not have a say on it and we don’t want future generations dealing with the problems we are dealing with now.”