Rapid Response Bosnia:
Warning Signs in Bosnia
sunday, May 15th from 1:00-2:30PM EST
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Is Bosnia on the brink again? This event, open to teachers and the public, features internationally-known speakers, fresh-takes on the conflict, and teaching strategies from award-winning educators. This free event is designed to inspire and equip you with the perspective, methodologies, and inspiration to empower your students not only to understand the potential crisis, but be able to take concrete actions to stop it.
The goal of the event is as follows:
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speakers and presenters
Panelist Amra Sabic-El-Rayess is a professor, award-winning author and activist who grew up in Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After surviving ethnic cleansing and more than 1,100 days under the Serbs’ military siege, she emigrated to the United States in 1996. By December 1999, she earned a B.A. in Economics from Brown University. Later, she obtained two Master’s degrees and a Doctorate from Columbia University. Currently, she is a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College working on understanding how and why societies fall apart and what role education can play in rebuilding countries. She has published on education-related issues and has lectured around the world to adult and adolescent audiences. Her award- winning memoir, The Cat I Never Named: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival, was published to critical acclaim. In her students’ feedback, Amra is consistently praised as one of the most inspiring professors they have encountered.
Professor Milena Sterio
Panelist Kim Klett is the Deputy Executive Director for the Educators' Institute for Human Rights (EIHR), with whom she has conducted teacher programs and led projects in Bosnia. She teaches English and a Holocaust Genocide Studies year-long class in Mesa, Arizona, where she has taught 30 years. Klett is a Museum Teacher Fellow with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Pathways for Peace Fellow, a Defiant Requiem Teacher Ambassador, an adjunct faculty member at Scottsdale Community College, and a senior facilitator for Echoes & Reflections.
Moderator John Heffernan has over three decades of experience in non-profit leadership roles on five continents. He is currently the president of the Foundation for Systemic Change. Previously he served as: Executive Director for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ Speak Truth To Power (STTP), the Director of the Genocide Prevention Initiative at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum where he established the Genocide Prevention Task Force, Senior Investigator with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) where he led three investigations to the Darfur, Sudan and Afghanistan, where he discovered a mass grave, and was the Chief of Party for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Guyana, South America. He was the founding Executive Director of the DC-based Coalition for International Justice. John served as Country Representative for the former Yugoslavia for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and managed IRC’s refugee resettlement program in Khartoum, Sudan. John also served as the Vice President of the Business Council for the United Nations in New York City. He was a Coro fellow in San Francisco and has a Master’s from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and BA from UCSB. He is also the board chair for Disability Rights International.
Panelist Alma Žero is the EIHR Education Coordinator for work in the Western Balkans. She coordinates local and international collaborative initiatives, and assists in curriculum development. Alma earned an M.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Sarajevo, and is a PhD researcher in inclusive education at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Over the past ten years, she (co-)organized numerous activities and projects on human rights, youth engagement, and foreign language education. As a 2017-2018 USHMM Teacher Fellow, Alma is dedicated to mass atrocities prevention and sustainable peace. As a University of Texas Applied Drama Institute Fellow, she also explores how arts integration encourages positive interethnic relations and inclusive policies. Alma worked as a K10 English teacher from 2009-2015. Since 2015, Alma has been teaching at the University of Sarajevo.
Panelist Tatjana Milovanović holds a MAS Degree in Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, MA Degree in Democracy and Human Rights from the University of Sarajevo and University of Bologna, and a Law degree from the University of East Sarajevo. In addition to her position as the Program Director of the Post-Conflict Research Center, she is also the Associate Editor of Balkan Diskurs. She has extensive experience in the fields of program development and management, project coordination, and youth work.