Registration Open: September 1-10, 2022 Catalyze Peacebuilding Pilgrimage
For the first time since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are very excited to announce that our registration is open for individuals and small groups to come to Bosnia & Herzegovina on our fall 2022 Catalyze Peacebuilding Pilgrimage.
Dates: September 1-10, 2022
Cost: $1600
(includes food and lodging, travel within BiH, honorariums for workshop leaders and guest speakers, excursion and team building activities, and museum entry fees; does not include travel to or from BiH)
We will be hosting a similar experience for a student group coming from Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. These students are coming on a Nanovic Institute for European Studies faculty-led trip in May: Religion, Identity, and Peace at the Periphery of Europe. Peace Catalyst International and our local peacebuilding partners are excited for the growing interest in and impact of these trips because we prioritize involving local participants as part of the learning group while we listen to Bosnia’s peacebuilding practitioners. So for each and every group that comes, there are more local people learning about and getting involved in peacebuilding efforts.
On this pilgrimage experience, we’ll engage Bosnia & Herzegovina’s rich history and context with peacebuilders from Sarajevo and around BiH, learning lessons about peacebuilding that can be reapplied back home in your community. This experience includes 3 pre-pilgrimage preparatory Zoom calls covering Bosnian history and some introductory peacebuilding training; the 10-day pilgrimage; and post-trip debriefing, follow-up, and application.
”This type of collaborative trip is the way of the future. We must all learn to live out the Gospel in this way everywhere.”
-2019 Participant
ITINERARY
Preparatory Zoom Calls: July 30, August 13, and August 27, 2022 from 2:00-3:30pm EST
Peace-oriented theology & an introduction to conflict transformation
Understanding Bosnia & Herzegovina basics
Dialogue, dignity, and understanding alternative group narratives and histories
Sample Pilgrimage Itinerary: September 1-10, 2022*
Day 1 – Arrival and orientation
Day 2 – Tour Sarajevo’s old city; War Childhood Museum; Cable Car to Trebević (Olympic Mountain); Evening prayers & Muslim hospitality
Day 3 – Srebrenica museum; Local talk and discussion with Serb political analyst and psychologist: Competing narratives & alternative facts
Day 4 – Review of group narratives and interreligious peacebuilding principles in preparation for collaborative experience with diverse local group
Day 5 – Nonviolent communication and teambuilding with Bosniak Muslim peacebuilders; Identity workshop with Center for Peacebuilding
Day 6 – Visit to Mostar & Žitomislići (Orthodox monastery) with Serb Orthodox Abbot
Day 7 – Bosnian Protestant peacebuilding trainer and psychotherapist on group narratives and cycles of trauma; Team-building activities in the afternoon
Day 8 – Visit to Franciscan community; Visit to local mosque
Day 9 – Discussion of identity and otherness; Building bridges across competing narratives; Peacebuilding & exclusivism, etc.
Day 10 – Wrap-up reflections; departure
*Itinerary is subject to change according to the availability of local peacebuilders and speakers
