From the 6 – 9 June, 2014, Sarajevo city was a host to an international peace event called Sarajevo Peace Event 2014. Several thousand people committed to peace coming mainly from Europe spoke out together against war and violence 100 years after the beginning of World War I. There were more than 100 workshops and round tables organized on five thematic issues: culture of peace and nonviolence; gender, women and peace; peace and social justice; reconciliation and dealing with the past; and militarism and alternatives.
These workshops contributed in showing the diversity of existing peace work, support a critical analysis and exemplified new alternatives. On the behalf of IUS, Senior Assistant Nerkez Opačin from the International Relations Program was participating at this great event with his workshop “Our Story” – Peace building through storytelling. The stories had a point of exerting moral pressure on what should be done in order to shape peoples thoughts and actions and thereby bring changes.
Speakers reflected on the past and discussed the problems and needs of today, with the aim of influencing the future through the act of speaking and listening to stories.
"This is a powerful tool for the socialization of children of different cultures, so through conversation and storytelling one can play an important role in peace education and empowering young people to be peacemakers themselves. Relying on this foundation, the “Our Story” workshop was an ideal place for an interactive storytelling and story-playacting environment, aiming at evoking the understanding of “the other” through telling stories, to trigger a sense of empathy” said Assistant Nerkez Opačin.
