From Sharpshooters to Soccer Diplomacy in Kosovo

By Laura Sheahen

In 1999, 8-year-old Milos Adzancic was barricaded in his family's home, listening to the violence on the streets of his village and wondering what was going on. "For seven days, we kids weren't allowed out of the house because of sharpshooters," Milos recalls. "I remember people being killed, kicked out of their houses. I remember the army." Caught in Kosovo's spiraling war between Serbs and Albanians, Milos — a Serb — could have grown up wanting little to do with his Albanian counterparts.

Instead, Milos is one of a group of teenagers trying to bridge the ethnic divide that led to 1999's bloodshed. Now 17, Milos is part of Youth Securing the Future, a Catholic Relief Services and USAID-funded program that seeks to build peace between Serbian and Albanian young people.

In ethnically divided northern Kosovo, teenagers are at risk of buying into extremism. "I must admit there is tension [between ethnic groups]," Milos says. "It's hidden, waiting, but there." Joint projects and social activities funded through Youth Securing the Future help keep those tensions at bay and promote understanding. Flare-ups of violence following Kosovo's declaration of independence in February 2008 highlight the problem.

But joint projects and social activities funded through Youth Securing the Future help keep those tensions at bay and promote understanding. With funding from small grants, teenagers from Albanian and Serbian communities are able to create school newspapers, run student radio stations, and participate in multiethnic student councils. "Through the organization Duga ["Rainbow"], we attended meetings with Albanian students," says Milos. He also attended a Serb-Albanian conference about web design held in Kosovo's capital. "There is a huge desire for peace, but there are [some] young people not interested in being part of this process," Milos admits. He points to sports programs like soccer teams as a "successful peacebuilding method" for students.

In October 2007, Milos visited the United States with three Albanian students after the four of them won a Youth Securing the Future essay contest on tolerance. Being the only Serb on the trip was "a little" difficult, he said, as was the language barrier; Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians sometimes use English as a common language. But Milos enjoyed spending time with his Albanian friends as they visited D.C. museums, New York schools and the United Nations.

One thing that struck Milos about America is that "everybody is busy and in a hurry. Therefore everybody has a job." In Kosovo, up to 60 percent of the population — most of whom are under age 25 — are unemployed. After he finishes high school, Milos hopes to study computer science and counteract the unemployment trend.

Milos also plans to stay active in groups that encourage tolerance between Albanians and Serbs, even as the situation in Kosovo remains shaky. "I have grown up in a strange world," Milos wrote in his winning essay. Now, he says, "I hope that I'll be able to engage more young people to think about peace."

Laura Sheahen is CRS' regional information officer for Europe and the Middle East. She is based in Cairo.