Kosovo
Following the Kosovo War, we held workshops to prepare future generations to avoid continuing the cycle of revenge. We trained and mentored Kindergarten teachers and young adults to build genuine tolerance and reconciliation.
Building a culture of ethnic tolerance in Kindergartens (2006)
In December 2006, Karuna Center was invited by Save the Children and Search for Common Ground to train kindergarten teachers to lead multi-ethnic, multilingual kindergartens. This program was based on the success of Search for Common Ground’s Moziak kindergarten program in Macedonia for Albanian and Macedonian children. In Kosovo, depending on the region, Albanian, Serbian, Bosniak, or Turkish children were to be taught in bilingual classrooms. Karuna Center’s training focused on ways teachers could use this program to build a culture of tolerance among the children and their parents – as well as on team-building for the teachers, who would have to heal from their own vastly different experiences of the war and its aftermath.
Youth Peace Leadership Training (2000-2001)
At the invitation of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), Karuna Center traveled to Kosovo, Serbia and finally Montenegro three times from 2000-2001 to facilitate dialogues between Serb and Albanian young adults, all involved in UMCOR projects in Kosovo. We trained each group separately in skills of conflict analysis, open questions, recognizing prejudice and stereotypes, and finding an alternative to the cycle of revenge that had become so strongly entrenched in Kosovo.
© Karuna Center for Peacebuilding
PO Box 727, Greenfield, MA 01302 USA
PHONE: +1 413.256.3800
Registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization