This project aims to enhance Kosovo’s societal cohesion by fostering a deeper understanding of Kosovo’s conflict legacy through nationwide research, capacity-building activities, and the integration of transitional justice into the national education curriculum. It aims to build the capacities of young students to research matters on transitional justice and to provide the general public with a deeper understanding of the conflict legacy.
Summary
The Kosovo War has deeply affected local communities and the people’s collective memory thus creating biased narratives that continue to divide rather than unify the communities living in Kosovo. Dealing with the conflict legacy in Kosovo aims to address the knowledge gap on the Kosovo War and enhance public understanding through a multifaceted approach involving research, education, and public discourse. An example is the educational system which perpetuates the war narratives leaving ethnic divisions lingering more than two decades after the conflict.
This project in the first instance aims to deepen the understanding of the war by conducting comprehensive, objective research to challenge one-sided narratives. This objective will be achieved through detailed research and analysis of war discourse by Kosovo’s main institutions and some targeted municipalities to understand more about how they take into account the war and the aftermath of their public discourse, with an emphasis on what they chose to share to the public by analyzing their official websites and social media profiles. The interest of the project is to analyze their discourse and see if transitional justice principles apply to the main institutions and their heads in carrying out the war legacy. In addition to that, the research will emphasize researching the media, monuments, and research narratives of solidarity by individuals coming from different communities during the war. All the research findings will be disseminated through a conference, TV debate, and digital channels.
Dealing with the conflict legacy in Kosovo efforts to address the consequences of the conflict in Kosovo. To achieve this besides having thorough research on war, the project aims to empower the youth by providing them with opportunities to research transitional justice by encouraging them to conduct research, contribute, and promote specific topics of transitional justice. The necessity for meaningful educational reform, particularly in addressing the complexities of the war within the national curriculum will be addressed through a thorough needs assessment for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology placing the focus on the extent to which transitional justice is currently addressed within Kosovo’s educational framework.
This project comes at a time when the public discourse is very quickly heavily loaded with increased doses of mono-ethnic narratives, thus forgetting the multi-ethnic character of Kosovo. Through the research by BIRN Kosovo, it is intended to explain in detail some aspects of the war and to adress the urgency that the new generations begin to learn properly about everything that happened in Kosovo, with transitional justice principles included.
Through research grants for youth, it seeks to give research opportunities to young students to give their contribute to the field of transitional justice by ensuring them a capacity-building workshop and mentorship up to finalization of their research project.
Donors:
UNDP, British Embassy
Main objectives:
Objective 1: To bridge the knowledge gap on the Kosovo War and enhance public understanding through objective, multi-perspective, in-depth research and public discourse
Objective 2: To cultivate a future-oriented approach to transitional justice by engaging youth in research and providing insight into the existing state of transitional justice education within the University of Prishtina.
Main activities:
Activity 1: War Heritage Research and Documentation – Research, draft and finalize the research paper
Activity 2: Organize a conference to disseminate the findings of the research paper
Activity 3: Organize a TV debate
Activity 4: Promoting research on transitional justice through student grants: Drafting, finalizing, and opening the call for the students of the University of Prishtina
Activity 5: Capacity Building Workshop
Activity 6: Publishing student’s research papers on BIRN’s website
Activity 7: Preparation and Submission of Educational Needs Assessment
Target groups:
The project’s main target audience includes students, educators, researchers, journalists, survivors and witnesses of Kosovo War as well as policymakers.
Implementer:
BIRN Kosovo