Let’s walk together

Nadežda Mojsilović is a Serb and an Ortodox. She is employed in the ” Archdiocesan Center for youth ministry,” John Paul II.” She is working on a project ” Let’s walk together”. The project is a joint initiative of the serbian ortodox church and the catholic church in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“The priest Mladen Drobnjak and I got the blessing of the Zahumlje- Herzegovina and coastal Grigorije Bishop to work on this project”, explains Nadežda, adding that the goal is not to assimilate someone. On the contrary says Nadežda- objective of the project is to teach others their religion, taking into account all the differences.

The project ” Let’s walk together” was created three years ago. Its goal is to promote the exchange of exeriances of young people in BiH. But also the introduction of another religion, is important of this project. Nadežda works on this project from the beginning.

” I do not like to hear that we are working on reconsiliation. On what kind of reconsiliation are we talking if no one argued. We – young people are not arguing because we had no opportunity to meet. Our goal is to get to know each other, to break prejudices,” says Mojsilović.

Mojsilović pointed out she was part of a group of young people in Inter- Religious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, working on this project since its inception, the last three years. Among other things, in Sarajevo groups of young eople have visited various places of religious worship, the ortodox and catholic churches, mosques.

” The experience of young people are positive. In the first- they think of that as unusual, but lot of them are interested in this and we have never before had anyone opposed to the idea to visit any of three places”, says Mojsilović.

Jelena Grebenar is a Croat and a Catholic, who is part of the project as well as Nadežda from the start. She believes that hatred and mistrust mainly comes from ignorance. And youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in her opinion know little about others and anything that can be described as different.

” I am from Vitez, and in Travnik and Vitez there are ortodox and islamic religious buildings, but I did visited them until I came to Sarajevo. I think that my example shows how we, as a society do not care about things like this. Today, when we organize a trip like this, reactions are different, there are many of them who show interest- asking questions. On the other hand, others show indifference. However, we are very proud when we see changes. Young people are surprised, they come and tell us ” I thought it will be different”, says Jelena.

This year, in addition to the Serbian Ortodox church and the Catholic church in Bosnia and Herzegovina on this project are working young people from the Islamic community of BiH.” We are very pleased that this year we included the Islamic community in the project. We have started to involve a significant number of students. We had the opportunity to organize two workshops, the second one is in the process of making. I believe that in the upcoming period the project will have a positive impact on young people”, said Alija Gušić, representative of the Islamic community in the project ” Let’s walk together”.

Through the projectsignificant number of trainings are organized in BiH. Every year we organize a youth camp, and the last two years it was placed at the Nišići plateau(Nišićka visoravan), near the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Young people through this project have a chance to go on the study tours and interreligious encounters.

Author: Aleksandra Tolj

This text was written as a part of Divided Past – Joint Future project and it does not represent nor reflects attitudes and viewpoints of the European Union, its institutions and bodies. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in the text lies entirely with the author.