The Power of Storytelling

By Veronica Hibbert 

Today, we spoke with Besa Luci from Kosovo 2.0. Over the past few days, I have been researching the independent media platform in preparation for our meeting. I was excited to finally be able to ask our questions and hear directly from someone involved in shaping its vision. So far, we’ve met with a wide range of people, The New Social Initiative, Kosovo Women’s Network and Elizabeth Gowing, and each has offered us a very different lens through which to understand Kosovo’s social and political dynamics. I was especially looking forward to this session because it gave us the chance to engage with a completely different kind of organisation; a media outlet that prioritises depth, critical reflection and the power of storytelling. 

 

Something that stayed with me from our meeting with Besa Luci was the idea of slow journalism. Before this, I hadn’t really thought about how much the speed of today’s media affects the quality of the stories we consume. We’re constantly flooded with updates, headlines, and opinions. There’s always pressure to be the first, to keep scrolling, and to react instantly. When Besa talked about Kosovo 2.0’s approach, it felt like a breath of fresh air. They focus on telling stories that are carefully researched and thoughtfully written, stories that take time, dig deeper, and ask why something matters, not just what happened.

 

This deeply resonated with me and made me reflect on the kind of media I want to engage with. It made me realise how often I skim through articles or scroll past posts without fully understanding the context. I’m accustomed to consuming information quickly, so I frequently forget how powerful it can be to slow down and truly listen. I found it inspiring that Kosovo 2.0 doesn’t just report on events; they create spaces for voices and perspectives that might otherwise go unheard. 

 

Hearing Besa speak about their work reminded me that good journalism is not just about speed. This meeting left a strong impression on me, and I feel lucky that we had the opportunity to speak with someone who is challenging the way media works and demonstrating the power of storytelling. 

Image from Kosovo 2.0

https://kosovotwopointzero.com/en/ending-the-silence-cycle/ 

Optimism in the face of increasing global polarisation

By Isaac Otter

After the second and final cancelation of EULEX my blog post requires a different focus. Something that has really struck me is the optimism of the people we have talked to in Kosovo. The current international political tides have been making me feel more and more alienated and disillusioned with global politics, especially regarding the increasing polarisation and extremity of political narratives on all sides. This shift, in combination with the trend of decreasing international aid and increase in national military spending, put me into a very pessimistic headspace when coming into Peace Lab. This feeling was reaffirmed to some extent with the first meeting of the course with New Social Initiative (NSI), after they gave us a genuine and emotional narrative which positioned Kosovo as a “pre-conflict” state. At this point I was feeling like my notions of global politics were materialised in Kosovo – a troubling and unsettling feeling which stuck with me. 

However, over the following four days, and with meetings with various NGOs and individuals who are peacebuilders in Kosovo, my feelings started to shift. The first moment in this shift of perception was the meeting with Elizabeth Gowing. With her extremely impressive portfolio of work in Kosovo institutions, it was her story of how she began a preparatory education school for minority children that really impacted me. It painted a picture of unwavering and dedicated aid on a local scale, with no expectation of payment or personal gain. 

This optimistic outlook was added to by today’s meeting with Besa Luci, a co-founder of Kosovo 2.0. Her dedication and passion for journalism, specifically slow journalism, was powerful - and a perspective which I felt like I really needed to hear in a time of fast media. 
In conclusion, these meetings have reflected to me my own dismissive and pessimistic perspective, as the people in Kosovo we spoke to – who are actively fighting the injustices that had fuelled my outlook – gave me a much more positive outlook. This aligns with what Besa said about the importance of “unlearning” – something I will try and take into my day-to-day life. 

This is a screenshot of Kosovo 2.0’s website which shows their commitment to and production of slow journalism.

Women and peacebuilding

By Maria van Wijnen

Last Friday (13 June) we met with a representative from the Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN), a leading organisation dedicated to promoting gender equality and advancing women’s rights across Kosovo. An important part of KWN’s work involves collaboration across ethnic lines. By working closely with civil society organisations representing different backgrounds, KWN helps address common issues that affect women regardless of ethnicity, such as gender-based violence, economic inequality, and access to healthcare and education. This was particularly interesting because, as we have learned, there are high ethnic tensions in Kosovo from both sides. Thus, the way that the KWN has been able to create a sense of solidarity among all women is very inspiring and I believe, sets a strong example of how to bridge communities through shared challenges.

Kosovo Women’s Network Logo

KWN explained how one of the major challenges facing women is domestic violence which had increased after the war as a result of the violence. I found it interesting how Adeline spoke about this, as she explained that many men struggled after the war because of the violence they had witnessed or experienced. She was careful to not frame this as an excuse for this behaviour, saying “everyone experienced violence.” I found this quite important because while PTSD or other trauma-related mental health challenges are important to explaining this violence, they do not justify it. Adeline went on to explain how after the war, the government did not realise or understand that there was a need for women's shelters, so women started just taking each other in and forming unofficial shelters. This is one example of really powerful solidarity among women.

 

Another challenge facing women is the high rate of unemployment. While we had discussed this in class as it is an issue facing the entire country, I had not thought about how this might disproportionately affect women. Moreover, unemployment exacerbates economic dependency, making it harder for domestic abuse victims to escape dangerous situations. The KWN has advocated for laws and policies that provide greater protection for survivors and works closely with shelters and service providers to ensure that survivors have access to essential services, including safe housing, psychological support, legal aid and health care. The organisation also monitors how these services are funded and delivered, pushing for sustained government funding so that women are not left vulnerable due to budget cuts or political shifts. Through public campaigns, KWN raises awareness about domestic violence, challenges harmful gender norms, and encourages both survivors and bystanders to speak out and seek help. KWN also partners with other organisations to provide training, capacity-building, and mentorship opportunities to improve women’s skills and employability.

 

Overall, the KWN has gained great legitimacy in Kosovo’s government; however, there are still challenges in achieving true gender equality, including gender quotas. While quotas are important to changing norms and proving that women are capable in governmental roles, they are still controversial. As Adeline discussed, many politicians will only back female politicians who they know will not challenge institutions or speak out against injustices. She said that sometimes, politicians will just back the first female politician on an alphabetical list. This means that while statistically, women’s representation in government might have increased significantly, there is still a lack of true representation. I am not sure how this can be fixed but I do think that KWN’s work in advocacy and changing norms surrounding feminism and women’s rights will help form societal norms that will allow for full representation and inclusion of women in Kosovo’s society. Overall, speaking to Adeline about the KWN was truly inspiring and, in my eyes, a testament to how important women are to the peacebuilding process.

President Jahjaga’s speech at the Annual Convention of the Kosovo Women’s Network 

Even one new friendship

By Anna Sushko

Before the meeting, I had been so excited. For the last few days, I had been researching the New Social Initiative (NSI) for hours, reading about their projects, their opinion pieces and publications. I was impressed and deeply moved. Here was a civil society organisation that seemed not only to succeed in increasing civil participation in the local democratic processes of citizens in Serbian municipalities within Kosovo, but also in bringing youth of Serbian and Albanian communities together. I was asking myself, how did they do it? How did they entice anyone, in such a polarised society, to participate in their projects? I write this because it is hard for me to imagine which projects could be successful in increasing citizen participation and dialogue between groups which hold each other in contempt, in the societies I come from. In the past, New Social Initiative implemented mechanisms to increase transparency of, and citizen interaction with, municipalities.

They created spaces (online and in real life) where Serbians and Albanians could exchange their perspectives, without fear of backlash from their own communities for “talking to the enemy.”

They combated negative narratives of the different communities about each other through spreading positive stories on the Internet.

They repeatedly campaigned for normalisation and dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo.

An example of a project by NSI

To  make it short, they fought to build trust between communities and to democratic institutions, to normalise relations, and to increase citizen engagement in political processes. 

So there we were, 20ish young students, sitting together in a classroom in front of our respective computer screens, eager to talk to representatives of the civil society organisation which is doing all this, excited to be allowed to learn about and from their experiences.

In retrospect, I would say that we did learn and hear so much that changed our perspectives and widened our horizons, yet the lesson was very different from what we expected.

We met with two young representatives of the Initiative, in their 20s or early 30s. They started by introducing themselves, telling us how they became involved with NSI, and explaining the political context to us. They gave the impression of sharp political analysis, stressed busyness and urgency, and—quite prominently—frustration. 

We spent quite some time talking about the current situation in North Kosovo. They looked increasingly exhausted while they explained to us that the legitimacy crisis after the boycott of the elections in 2023, political measures such as abolishing the dinar (the Serbian currency), and a perceived general lack of readiness for dialogue from the Kosovar government exacerbated the already existing tension between the minority Serb communities in the North and the rest of the predominantly Albanian Kosovo population. To hear them say that they believe that society is even more divided today than it was shortly after the war was not only heartbreaking but disturbing.

A picture of an empty voting booth, resulting from the boycott of the elections by the Serbian community, which led to a crisis of legitimacy of elected representatives for the Serbian municipalities.

“Disturbed” is a good word to describe how I felt after the Zoom meeting. The committed peacebuilders illustrated that they feel like all their work is pointless, their past achievements void, and the future bleak, as they believe that they are living more in a pre-conflict rather than a post-conflict society. Moreover, they expressed how their hopes that the international community—Europe—would support their aspirations to create a Kosovo where minorities are and feel valued, which has normalized relations with Serbia, and where trust exists between different communities, were frustrated, as the international attention for Kosovo increasingly weakened with the years. They explained that without this international pressure, political will from the Kosovo leadership is lacking, and without that, they cannot do much.

They said, Serbian Kosovo citizens experience so much economic insecurity and distrust of Kosovo institutions and law enforcement that it is just not feasible to encourage participation in a political system they perceive as illegitimate and to try to build trust in a community whose government they feel oppressed by. Some New Social Initiative projects came to a halt because youth are too afraid to be seen as traitors to their own communities if they participate in them.

So we left the Zoom meeting all with a feeling that can be summarised by the following question of a fellow student: “Genuinely, what is the point then in peacebuilding?” How much can you really do, if the political will from the government does not seem to be there? However, what also stuck with me is that the one encouraging thing the NSI representatives said is that they feel that informal dialogue, digital safe spaces, sometimes still create new connections between members of different communities. It sounded like he was grasping for something positive to tell us when he said that his work still made sense as long as even one new friendship was created that way, yet I believe that this is true. As Anne said, even when peacebuilding seems pointless, one must still do it. From what we’ve learned so far, positive change is only in the realm of possibilities when political will from above works together with civil engagement coming from the grassroots.

It feels to me like to stop fighting for more trust between different communities and citizen participation would only increase tensions. Moreover, if one does not keep the work going, I imagine that the social, institutional and physical infrastructure which makes peacebuilding projects such as those from NSI possible would start degrading. Then, if the political circumstances should change to become more favourable again, the infrastructure might need a lot of resources to be rebuilt again. Moreover, even if the horrifying outlook of a new armed conflict becomes true, perhaps having the infrastructure—the social networks—of the New Social Initiative in place could help civilians? However, I would of course understand if the individuals keeping NSI running would choose not to get burnout trying to keep it working.

Of course, I am only speculating here, from a position of having grown up with peace privilege. I am aware that by talking to the New Social Initiative we only heard one perspective, but I most surely will ask Prime Minister Kurti about his thoughts on this perspective when we meet him on Zoom next week.

My final conclusion is that NSI did and is doing amazing work, and I do firmly believe that it is not futile, not even in the current situation. I can only imagine that the people who participated in their projects were sustainably influenced, as this one meeting gave me so much to think about. I also now prepare myself, even more than before, to become immensely frustrated by peacebuilding, should I be lucky enough to work in this field, and then, to continue doing it nevertheless.

Change is sweet

By Anne de Graaf

Welcome to the last Peace Lab Kosovo class. I'm the instructor of this very special qualitative research methods fieldwork class. Because of different financial priorities there is no longer money in the Amsterdam University College (AUC) budget for a trip to Kosovo. So in its 10th year, this class is meeting for the last time. Students said learning about peacebuilding needed to happen, which means we're meeting in Amsterdam and zooming with partners in Kosovo. They said a non-travel class was better than nothing. So here we are. We'll visit the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague next week and we've already had some exciting in-person Peacebuilding workshops with peacebuilders from around the world. Last week was about learning Balkan history. This week is about listening to peacebuilders from the Albanian and Serbian communities.

Still, it's hard to not take this latest group to the place we've been learning about during the last 10 days. I try not to dwell on how much more meaningful the class is when we travel, and instead I focus on this great group of students--my last Peace Lab class since I will be leaving AUC in December.

So it's a season of change. And already we are hearing from people in Kosovo that these are dark times. They feel there is no political will and with all the other crises in the world, what's happening in the Western Balkans doesn't seem to be a priority for the international community (whoever they are).

Different perspectives, deepening understanding, the courage of peacebuilders--these are all themes arising in this month-long course about peacebuilding, peacekeeping and peacemaking. Students this year have backgrounds from Russia, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, Ireland, Romania, Poland, Portugal, the U.S., UK and Sweden. All these different backgrounds just enrich the class even more.

Please join us as we travel (virtually) through Kosovo and discover our own peacebuilder journeys. There will be daily blogposts by the students. What does it mean to set aside being right and make a deeper understanding the top priority? How can we shut up and listen? How many different perspectives can we collect? Every year this class changes me and changes the students in it. Perhaps it will change you, too. Thank you!