Ukraine trainings

The Peace Academy has implemented a series of customized trainings for professional groups from the Ukraine. These enable learning from the experiences of post-war processes in Bosnia. In order to do this, they have incorporated 3 approaches:

  • Encounter: The beginning point for achieving the program objectives is the perspective derived from exposure to an unknown context and the resulting potential for reflection. The orientation tour will involve encounter with professional peers as well as the post-war context and its ongoing impact on society. Additionally it serves to support participants to disengage from the conflicted and likely stressful situations they leave at home.
  • New concepts and their adaptation: Workshops aim to develop skills among the participants to mitigate violence and influence their constituents’ attitudes and perceptions about people on either side of the conflict. The visit and training design have been adapted for the wide diversity of expected participants by inclusion of specific sessions (for example on conflict-sensitive journalism). In addition, materials will be adapted do identify the motivators for each audience, use of direct language, awareness of the constraints of each participant group and active participation to apply each concept. On several occasions different audiences will be separated in order to maximize learning specific to that group.
  • Building commitment and empowerment: Bosnia has been a witness to extensive skill training and awareness building. What makes the difference in our experience is exposure to people who ‘walk the walk’. Peer-to-peer collaboration is designed to foster one-on-one professional relationships. In order to maximize this component peers will be part of the opening and closing dinners and the orientation day. The Peace Academy offers our network of participants and collaborators who are committed to positive impact on their context. In addition, several visits at the end of tour will provide exposure to post-conflict work that has been recognized as strategic with the intention that this expands participants’ sense of what is possible.

The specific areas of focus and participant profiles of these visits are described in more detail.

The program is implemented by Worldlearning and funded by USAID

Program dates: April 2-9, 2017

The purpose of the program is to learn about B&H efforts, initiatives and experience to promote accountability, provide access to justice and fight corruption using the hybrid court model.

Goals of the program are:

  • Learn about B&H efforts in the establishing and applying hybrid approaches to justice
  • Learn about operations, maintenance and benefits of the hybrid court in B&H
  • Understand how the international and B&H elements of the hybrid court function
  • Explore how hybrid court relates to B&H’s law enforcement and judicial institutions
  • Observe best practices and lessons learn firsthand from B&H hybrid court
  • Discuss perspectives and challenges for establishing hybrid court in Ukraine

Dates: January 24-31, 2016

This program was designed to enable a group of 10 Ukrainian professionals from diverse backgrounds to strengthen knowledge and skills related to conflict transformation training in order to apply it to peacebuilding processes within the current Ukrainian setting. To do this it incorporated various perspectives related to the return of IDPs (as one of the most pressing social issues facing the targeted communities) and a systemic approach that considers NGO, government, and media contributions separately and through their interactions.  Given the target audience it focused primarily on community-level processes to which they have access.  Finally the program was designed based on the dynamic phase of conflict in the Ukraine which makes it difficult to plan projects and measure outcomes.  These perspectives were achieved by exposing participants to new practices in their area of expertise, providing targeted training opportunities, and providing resources and skills necessary to make informed decisions and adopt and implement what they have learned in their field of work. 

PROGRAM DATES: December 5-13, 2015

Transitional Justice (TJ) has been a focus of Bosnia and Herzegovinas (BiH) peace building initiatives since the mid-2000s. However, some TJ mechanisms were introduced much before the discourse of TJ entered the BiH public space: it was 1993 (in the middle of the BiH war) when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established, it was 2000 when the first initiative for a Truth Commission appeared, the beginning of 2000s when the first ad-hoc commission for investigations of events around specific human rights violations was formed, when a vetting process was applied to police officers and judges/prosecutors and much earlier when state institutions started to ensure monthly incomes to certain categories of recognized victims of war. Each of these mechanisms present in BiH, mainly initiated and sometimes implemented by the international community, has been subject to contestation, debate and struggle over facts, reflecting the ethno-political division of the country.

Dates: January 18-25, 2015

Training Subject and Agenda

The purpose of the program is to develop the ability of Ukrainian professionals to integrate conflict sensitivity into journalism, activism, and humanitarian assistance to ensure that such efforts promote peace and do not exacerbate violent conflict in southern and eastern Ukraine. Specifically, this training aims to develop skills among leading journalists, activists and humanitarians to mitigate violence and influence their constituents’ attitudes and perceptions about people on either side of the conflict in accordance with the “do no harm” approach.

Essays