A Voice For the Voiceless
The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. We recruit graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.
The Impact of Service
|
Translate this page:
Alison Sluiter and BOSFAM
School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University
Alison Sluiter will be working as an Advocacy Project Peace Fellow this summer with Bosnian Family (BOSFAM) in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. BOSFAM is an organization of women weavers, many of whom lost family members in the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide. Alison will be assisting BOSFAM in its efforts to provide women with income-generating handicraft projects as they struggle against poverty, misery, and suffering.
BOSFAM has supported internally displaced Bosnian women since 1994, regardless of religious or ethnic affiliation. The organization has also been a vocal advocate for the return to and reconstruction of the Srebrenica municipality. With assistance from The Advocacy Project (AP), BOSFAM co-sponsored a petition calling for the capture and arrest of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the chief architects of the Srebrenica massacre. Stateside, AP has extensively promoted the Srebrenica Memorial Quilts a collection of quilts which commemorate the over 8,000 victims of genocide in Srebrenica. These quilts have been shown to numerous Bosniak diaspora organizations and at colleges and universities throughout the US.
BOSFAM’s founder and director, Beba Hadzic, has plans to extend BOSFAM’s services from Tuzla, in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, to the city of Srebrenica in the Republika Srpska. Alison will assist Ms Hadzic and BOSFAM staff in their efforts to open a women’s center in Srebrenica. This center will encourage inter-ethnic reconciliation and dialogue through the use of traditional art forms. Such a project is essential in the face of damaging political rhetoric which causes inter-ethnic tensions to remain high throughout the country.
Alison graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in 2008 with a BS in Foreign Service. She majored in Russian and East European Politics, and received a certificate in Justice and Peace Studies. Alison studied abroad in Warsaw, Poland and Berlin, Germany. While in Berlin, she was an intern at the Blaetter fuer deutsche und internationale Politik, a German-language political journal. Alison returned to Berlin her senior year with a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to conduct thesis research on the educational attainment levels of Turkish-German female students in Germany. Alison has spent the past year with AP, first as an intern focusing on the Srebrenica Memorial Quilt project, and currently as AP’s Outreach Coordinator.
Alison recently spent several weeks promoting the Srebrenica Memorial Quilt in St. Louis, Chicago, New York, and DC with Ms Hadzic and the Executive Director of the Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Elmina Kulasic. Alison is thrilled to be able to continue working with AP and BOSFAM in the field this summer.
BAACBH Executive Director Elmina Kulasic, BOSFAM Executive Director Beba Hadzic, and AP Outreach Coordinator Alison Sluiter at an event to promote the Srebrenica Memorial Quilt Project.
Email Alison
Read Alison's Blog
Please support Alison’s work in Bosnia and Herzegovina with BOSFAM!
Back