Awards & Recognitions

Our Work Has Been Recognized and Rewarded 

ALL AWARDS WE HAVE RECEIVED

In October 2015, the Center for Peacebuilding received the highest recognition of the municipality of Sanski Most, where the organization is headquartered, the award is named the Sanski Most Charter.

In 2014, Center for Peacebuilding received an award from the foundation Peace Direct called Tomorrow’s Peacebuilders. Tomorrow’s Peacebuilders is the global awards for innovation in local peacebuilding. Through the annual awards, Peace Direct offers international recognition for organizations trying new or different peacebuilding approaches or new organizations doing peacebuilding where it hasn’t been done before.

These are the only global awards for local peacebuilders – inspiring individuals who are building a better tomorrow in the world’s most fragile places. They are chosen by an international panel of experts including distinguished peacebuilders and figures of reconciliation. In the last seven years, over 1,500 entries have been received from nearly 100 countries.

Foundation ‘’Schwelle’’ prize awarded our executive director Vahidin Omanović at the 5th International Bremen Peace Award in 2011 in the category ‘’Unknown Peaceworker’’.  With this award they honor people and organizations that set a good example in their work for Peace, Justice and the Integrity of Creation.


The Foundation ‘’Schwelle’’ wrote that : ‘’Many people greatly admire the joy and intensity with which the trained imam campaigns for reconciliation between the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina.’’. Vahidin’s work is appreciated all over the world, because he is one of not so many people that even being traumatized because of situations that he went through when the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina happened from 1992 till 1995, yet he found his way towards peace. After returning from exile in Slovenia, he found it difficult to accept the Bosnian Serbs in his home town Sanski Most. It was not until 1998, when assistants working in a peace centre asked him to organize a workshop, that he was able to rise above himself – and from that point on he has been campaigning.

 

In 2015 Vahidin Omanović, our excutive director, was awarded the Cohen Center’s Susan J. Herman Award for Leadership in Holocaust & Genocide Awareness. The Susan J. Herman Award is given in recognition of individuals who have, through personal leadership and actions, stimulated greater understanding of genocide, increased activism on behalf of the victims of crimes against humanity or inspired community engagement in educating people about genocide both historically and in our contemporary world. The Keene State Collage wrote about Vahidin and his experience from the war till his work in peacebuilding and reconciliation.

Participants that were at one of Vahidin’s lecturers said : “I think it’s so normal for someone who experienced what he did to hold on to hate, but Vahidin miraculously has not only let go of that hate but taken action to rise above it and work toward peace and reconciliation. I honestly don’t think I’ve met a more altruistic human being. I’m so thankful for the experience.” Someone else offered, “Vahidin is . . . a true peacemaker! Leading one to make peace in our individual hearts, with our personal demons, with our enemies, with our neighbors, within our world.”