Tomorrow I leave for Serbia to work with the Women in Black Network in Belgrade, a women’s feminist – antimilitarist peace organization that advocates against all forms of discrimination and violence toward women and other minority groups.

Just typing this now places me in a state of shock. How is it that I’ve been given this incredible opportunity? I feel so fortunate to have been chosen as an AP Peace Fellow to work this summer on areas that I’m deeply interested in: women’s rights, war to peace transitions, and transitional justice, just to name a few.

Last week, I spoke with Balkan experts, Roy Gutman and Jonathon Landay, about the most important questions I should be asking myself during my stay in Serbia. The themes we discussed included education, religion, culture, and politics; most of which were directly related to the former Yugoslavian Wars of the 1990’s that left enormous social and political repercussions in the region. Through my work with the Women in Black, I will seek to answer the following questions:
– What do Serbs think about the loss of Montenegro and the impending loss of Kosovo?
– How do Serbs perceive the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and how has it affected the functionality of the court?
– How much have Serbs come to grips with the past?
– What is the relationship between church and state since the break up of former Yugoslavia and what effect has this had on social movements?

Although I realize that my stay in Belgrade will be very short and that a complete understanding of past and present social and political dilemmas would take years of analysis and research, I will do my best to grasp as much as possible in order to accurately convey this information through my blog entries.

I am told that the Women in Black are a very organized, energetic, and prolific group of women and I hope that my work as an AP Peace Fellow will contribute to their mission in some meaningful way.

Before I finish this first entry, I’d like to add another point. I’ve been working for the last four weeks at the Advocacy Project in DC as their outreach coordinator. Working for AP’s home base has been a truly wonderful experience. The office was a fun and friendly environment filled with motivated and intelligent people, always eager to try their best at the task at hand. I already miss working with this amazing group of individuals and hope that the rest of the summer will be as rewarding as my experience has been thus far.