The Kick-off meeting of the project Fostering the Culture of Participation in Regional Reconciliation Dialogue – District of Reconciliation, co-funded by the European Union, was successfully held from May 29 to 30, 2025, in Novi Sad, Serbia, hosted by the Lead Applicant –Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture Foundation.
The project aims to create an interdisciplinary platform for regional dialogue and trust-building in the Western Balkans. Special emphasis is placed on youth engagement, participation of local communities, cultural cooperation, and the promotion of intercultural dialogue. At its core, the initiative contributes to long-term peacebuilding and the strengthening of reconciliation efforts across the region.
The project brings together civil society organizations from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, North Macedonia, and Montenegro, forming a diverse and interdisciplinary consortium. This complexity lies in the inclusion of organizations with complementary profiles: organizations dedicated to peacebuilding and reconciliation, youth organizations, actors engaged in democratic development and EU integration, and institutions working in the field of arts and cultural production.
Among the partners are: Foundation Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture (Lead Applicant, Serbia), Local Democracy Agency – LDA Subotica (Serbia), European Movement in Serbia (Serbia), Citizens’ Forum Tuzla (BiH), Youth Act Albania (Albania), Center for Intercultural Dialogue – CID (North Macedonia), Mladiinfo Montenegro (Montenegro), and OPENS – Youth Capital of Europe 2019 (Serbia).
During the two-day Kick-off meeting, partners discussed strategic coordination, administrative and financial procedures, communication strategy, and jointly defined the thematic framework for upcoming activities – including reconciliation, historical narratives, solidarity, memory, and intercultural understanding.
The District of Reconciliation will include following activities:
- An open call for engaged artistic productions up to 25,000 EUR, focusing on themes of peacebuilding and reconciliation, coordinated by LDA Subotica and the Foundation Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture;
- Three Intercultural Youth Camps (in Kumanovo, Podgorica, and Novi Sad);
- Three Regional Thematic Panels (in Tuzla, Podgorica, and Novi Sad);
- A series of interdisciplinary “District of Reconciliation” festivals in five cities across the Western Balkans (Kumanovo, Podgorica, Tuzla, Tirana, and Novi Sad).
- Three editions of Reconciliation Reflections – annual collections of written contributions by project participants and experts;
- A final publication compiling written policy-oriented recommendations and analytical texts related to reconciliation practices and approaches in the Western Balkans.
The project is co-funded by the European Union through the EU Civil Society Facility and Media Programme in favour of the Western Balkans and Turkey 2021–2023 (IPA III), with the goal of strengthening the role of civil society in building participatory democracies and fostering reconciliation across the region.
