News

Dear friends,

The Peace Academy Foundation has existed since August 2010, and we hope that it will continue to exist for many more years.  After organizing 3 Post-Yugoslav Peace Academies, we decided that we need formalization, structure, and a clearer strategic approach to our work. This is the reason that we created the PA Foundation which will continue serving as a place of reflection, learning, and exchange of experiences for people from the area of Southeast Europe and beyond, who are interested in peacebuilding and related problems and phenomena.

The values that we strive for as well as the core people of the Peace Academy have not changed.  We continue to be focused on and are intensively preparing for the 4th Post-Yugoslav Peace Academy which will be held from July 17-26, 2011.  For next year we envision the following topics: gender and sexuality in war and peace, media and memory, language and ideology.  We are in the process of communication with potential instructors and you can stay informed about all news about the PA 2011 via this site.

Besides organizing the main Summer Academy which has become well known throughout the region, we are also planning to begin organizing follow-up activities which should contribute to strengthening the peacebuilding process and critical reflection on our political and social reality.  We wish to strengthen our partnership and be more present and more visible across the region.

In any event – we will see you soon - at the regular place in Sarajevo, but with new geographic, activist, and intellectual foci.

Until soon,

Peace Academy Organizing Team
December 2010.

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Ubleha for idiots

  • Implementation

    A word that came into fashion in B&H with the war. In English, to implement means to execute, to perform or to put into, however, the use of local language counterparts is not recommended lest the mystical aura of a project (See) gets lost. The English word implement originates from the Latin verb implere which primarily means TO FULFILL, TO FILL OUT, and even TO IMPREGNATE A WOMAN. Therefore, implementation is about sex or, colloquially, about screwing someone but most of the time it is only virtual, where either there is no intercourse but there are partners in intercourse or there is only a so-called active partner in intercourse while the passive one (technical term “the one on the bottom”; See: beneficiary) does not at all exist or s/he does exist but does not notice that s/he participates in the implementation. Implementation is normally the biggest challenge for ubleha (See) but the best protection from that danger is a report (See) or, even better, a status report (See).

from Ubleha for Idiots – An Absolutely non useful Guide for Civil Society Building and Project management for Locals and Internationals in BiH and Beyond by Nebojša Šavija-Valha and Ranko Milanovic-Blank, ALBUM No. 20, 2004, Sarajevo, translated by Marina Vasilj.