A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

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

Kristi Severance and BOSFAM

 As part of The Advocacy Project's inaugural 2006 Fall Internship Program, Kristi Severance, a lawyer with a background in international human rights law, is working at BOSFAM in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Krisi is particularly interested – and has experience – in human rights issues affecting refugees, displaced persons and asylum seekers, particularly women. She has also done extensive work on anti-trafficking measures and has published on that topic.

BOSFAM is an NGO founded to assist women who survived and were displaced by the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica. BOSFAM, which stands for Bosnian Family, provides a workspace for the women, who are highly skilled craftspeople specializing in weaving traditional Bosnian carpets. For many of the women, the sale of these carpets, together with other handmade articles of clothing, are their sole source of income. BOSFAM achieves two important objectives: it is a physical space where the women can create the items they sell, and it is a psychological refuge, where they can find support in each other's company.

Kristi is working with BOSFAM director Beba Hadzic on several projects, including promoting the Sponsor A Weaver program. The Sponsor A Weaver program allows groups or individuals to support an expert weaver and two apprentices, thereby providing not only present and future sources of income, but a mechanism for perpetuating an important cultural tradition. In return, the group or individual receives one of the beautiful carpets.

• Kristi Severance's blog