Joined by our contributors to the collection, friends of the War Childhood Museum, and numerous local and foreign dignitaries last night, we marked the WCM’s seventh birthday at the “Dom mladih” in Sarajevo.
7th Birthday of War Childhood Museum – highlights
The birthday celebration ceremony was opened by the WCM director in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Amina Krvavac, with a brief overview of research, exhibition, and educational activities in the past year. Krvavac emphasized that during 2023, the MRD team continued to work on documenting experiences, collecting exhibits and video testimonies of childhood marked by war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as worldwide.
Millions of children currently live in war-affected areas, facing impossible challenges. With our mission and vision, WCM seeks to be a platform that will empower those voices, contribute to a better understanding of the impact of war on children and youth, and promote the importance of peacebuilding.
WCM director in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Amina Krvavac
In the past year, WCM has collected more than 400 new exhibits and testimonies, bringing our collection to over 6,000 personal stories, memories, and testimonies of children from twenty war-affected areas.
Besides our permanent exhibition in Sarajevo, which was rotated at the beginning of 2024, WCM has organized exhibitions in Tuzla, Bucharest, Newcastle, Brussels, and Kyiv – it was our first exhibition in Ukraine since the start of the total invasion. In October 2023, we also produced a virtual exhibition titled “Stories from Gaza: Growing Up Under Blocade.”
Over the past year, we have organized over 200 peace education workshops for over 3,000 students from Visoko, Tuzla, Konjic, Mostar, Kladanj, and many other cities. The workshops were carried out in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Sarajevo Canton, representing an outstanding example of how institutions and independent cultural initiatives can collaborate effectively. This cooperation also shows how we can jointly provide content to students from all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
WCM director in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Amina Krvavac
The founder and general director of the War Childhood Museum, Jasminko Halilovic, addressed the guests as well. Speaking about international activities, Halilovic particularly emphasized the participation of the WCM in MEMENTOES, a three-year project aimed at developing three educational video games for children and adults. One of these games is dedicated to the experience of growing up in war and is co-created by the War Childhood Museum and the award-winning game studio Charles Games from Prague.
We are developing a video game based on the Museum’s collection. The game’s production is accompanied by scientific research coordinated by the WCM, which will result in scientific papers on the potential of video games for learning about historical events and building empathy. This video game, under the working title ‘Toys,’ is one of the innovative tools that will enable us to play an important role in peacebuilding and justice education worldwide.
The founder and general director of the War Childhood Museum, Jasminko Halilovic
Halilovic was later joined on the stage by Oleksandra Dmytrenko, the project manager in our Kyiv office. In a brief conversation, Dmytrenko reflected on the exceptional efforts made by the WCM Ukrainian team to document the experiences of children in the country and exile despite difficult circumstances. Thus, our team doubled the museum collection over the past year, which now counts over 500 exhibits and stories. A selection of these will be featured in a significant exhibition in Kyiv planned for the following summer.
The War Childhood Museum wouldn’t be what it is without the support of numerous partners who have recognized its significance. During last night’s program, the UN Resident Coordinator in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ingrid Macdonald, addressed the attendees and announced the expansion of WCM activities over the next two years with the support of the UN Peacebuilding Fund. This is a very important peacebuilding project, which will be implemented through research, exhibitions, and educational activities in more than 30 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The needs of the local community have always been one of the priorities of the War Childhood Museum. Through a close connection and collaboration with the community, the Museum has developed and grown over the years. Today, in addition to participants, partners, and friends, our community includes all those participating in our educational programs and activities. Therefore, last night, a brief panel discussion was organized on the topic “What is the Museum to us?” during which Nejra Razanica, a contributor to the collection, history professor Dino Hajdar, and student and participant in our educational workshops Din Duričić spoke about their connection to the Museum. In an emotional presentation, Razanica pointed out how the process of donating exhibits helped her explain a part of her childhood to her children today.
In the end, this year’s “Lejla Hairlahović Hušić Scholarship” recipients were announced. The award committee decided to grant two candidates: Anes Osmić, a senior assistant at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, who is conducting doctoral research on the topic “Literature and Emotional Literacy – Developing Emotional Literacy Skills through Reading and Analyzing a Corpus of Bosnian-Herzegovinian Literature in Primary Schools,” and Iris Ivaniš, a project manager at the University of Ljubljana, who is conducting doctoral research on the topic “Ontological Security through the power of memory in Bosnia-Herzegovina: War Childhood Museum.”
