Financial support from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway within the framework of the European Economic Area and Norwegian grants - Active Citizen Fund ACF
Project coordinator: Documenta - Centre for Dealing with the Past
Partner: Centre for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights - Osijek
Project summary: The existing legal mechanisms are vague and overlook the civilian victims of war, and the process of social trust building is slowed down by the ineffective resolution of the fate of the missing, ineffective justice, poor institutional and social support with signs of intolerance and hate speech, and inadequate dealing with the past. Therefore, the main goal of the undertaking is to strengthen civil society and vulnerable groups in the process of humanizing the relationship towards victims of war and violations of human rights, regardless of their national, ethnic or political affiliation. By focusing on target groups that include victims of the wars of the 20th century and their families, lawyers and jurists, representatives of the judicial, legislative and executive authorities, young students and researchers, as well as the media, experts and the general public, efforts will be made to strengthen and initiate a stronger social and political support including a more effective search for the missing, recognition of the rights of the families of the murdered and other civilian victims, and stronger prosecution of war crimes. During the three-year period, as part of the project, efforts will be made through strengthened active citizenship to provide a better and more humane approach to the problems of war victims and the practices of the culture of memory in Croatia, through a series of different activities that include support for victims and survivors, public advocacy of the rights of civilian victims of war (meetings with judicial institutions, writing comments on legislative proposals, etc.), better history teaching and empowering young people to face the past, and strong public advocacy in the form of crowdfunding and other smaller advocacy campaigns.
Through 36 months, the project aims to create a safer environment in which people are ready to talk about their fates and the fates of the victims, thus encouraging the networking of different stakeholders at the local and national level, at the same time seeking greater social understanding and institutional transparency.
