The book launch marked the completion of the second year of Balkan fellowship for journalistic excellence, an initiative of the Robert Bosch Stiftung and ERSTE Foundation, in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.
The book showcases the work of 10 journalists who spent many months researching and putting together their original pieces.
The reception was organised in honour of the two fellows from Serbia, Zvezdana Crnogorac, author of the article, Tuning the Soul to something higher and Aleksandra Stankovic, whose piece, Dash for Wealth Dooms Wild Frontier came in second place overall at a prestigious awards ceremony held recently in Vienna.
Aleksandra and Zvezdana discussed their experiences during the project. “Not many people get the opportunity to travel and work, both throughout the region, and across Europe. Through this project I had the chance to bring to fruition my research on the opportunities for sustainable development in Stara Planina, a topic that I have been researching for several years and that is one of my special interests”, Aleksandra Stankovic said. Zvezdana Crnogorac said how much she had enjoyed participating in the programme and encouraged everyone to consider taking part in future.
At the book launch, The BIRN team announced that following the success of the this year’s programme, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Erste Foundation have agreed to continue their funding and that the 2009 programme will get underway in January.