A Voice For the Voiceless

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The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

MacKenzie Frady and BOSFAM

MacKenzie Frady graduated in 1999 from the College of William and Mary with a BS in Psychology. She worked in the Northern Virginia area for five years as a financial analyst before returning to graduate school. She is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Business from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business in Washington DC where she is active in the Student Government and other interest clubs. In addition to school activities, she is a GED tutor for adults in Fairfax County.

MacKenzie Frady worked for BOSFAM in Tuzla, Bosnia as part of The Advocacy Project’s 2005 Summer Internship Program.

BOSFAM is an organization that provides assistance to women survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II. The killings transpired during an ethnic-cleansing campaign in Bosnia during the 1990s. In addition to offering a refuge for the victims, BOSFAM gives these women an opportunity to weave rugs and produce other goods which are then sold to generate income. For many, this is their only means of earning money.

During her two months in Tuzla, MacKenzie made improvements to the BOSFAM website and was responsible for crafting a strategic plan to move the organization in the direction of self-sufficiency and long-term sustainability. The latter project occupied most of her energies. When MacKenzie first arrived at BOSFAM, she noticed a lack of coherence and structure in the organization. With the new organizational framework, MacKenzie hopes to provide BOSFAM with guidelines that will be easy to understand and useful far into the future.

The internship also afforded MacKenzie the opportunity to help coordinate and witness the ceremonies marking the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. Many of the women she interacted with continue to be haunted by the atrocity and the deaths of their family members and friends. In Tuzla, MacKenzie observed that it was impossible to escape the memories of the killings because there were daily reminders which triggered more grief and more sorrow. Despite these reminders, the women in BOSFAM remain strong and determined.

While she was in Tuzla, MacKenzie recorded her experiences and impressions online in the form of blogs. Included in these blogs are MacKenzie’s reflections as she discussed the lingering effects of the Srebrenica massacre with Beba, her translator and a weaver at BOSFAM, as well as an account of MacKenzie’s visit to the site of the massacre in Srebrenica and the under-funded schools in the region.

• MacKenzie Frady's blog

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