Academy for Educational Development

This bridge in Mitrovica, Kosovo, divides the mainly Serbian-populated northern part of the city and the mainly Albanian-populated southern area. To foster mutual understanding between the groups, AED is working with TV stations on each side of this bridge to produce joint stories.

The two women had never met. Though Majlinda Brahimi and Mirjana Nedeljkovic were both television journalists in the same city, their paths never crossed. The reason they were cut off from one another is clear: Brahimi is a Kosovo Albanian and Nedeljkovic is a Kosovo Serb.

In areas of the world like Kosovo, where ethnic unrest can rigidly segregate a society, communication is essential to building peace. AED has decades of experience in communication for social change using a variety of media. But in Kosovo, something different—something innovative—was needed.

That’s why the AED Center for Civil Society and Governance, with support from the United States Agency for International Development, decided to work with journalists to start a dialogue between two ethnic groups that have lived separately in the same space for years.

Bringing Journalists Together

Tensions run high even though the ethnic groups have little to no interaction with each other on a daily basis. Concerns over safety, infrastructure, jobs, and Kosovo’s future status continually threaten to spark violence.

“The segregation in Kosovo is so pervasive that it extends to the media sector,” said Mary Mulvihill, a senior technical advisor for AED who oversaw the project. “AED and six local television stations recognized that there were no common programs exploring both communities’ perspectives.”

In early 2006, six teams consisting of one cameraman and one journalist—including Nedeljkovic and Brahimi—from three Kosovo Albanian and three Kosovo Serb television stations in the north, east and southeast areas of the territory, met with AED to lay the groundwork for the Kosovo Team Reporting Initiative.

They agreed to create films that followed the daily activities of a few average people in their communities. “We are a society that still feels the wounds of the past,” said Minire Haziri, a Kosovo Albanian journalist. “It is a good thing when one community cooperates with the other—the issues are covered in a more real and unbiased way.”

‘Looking to the Future’

Following that workshop, the six reporting teams returned home to develop storyboards for their films. The two teams from each region met to review the storyboards and then went back to their separate communities to interview and film. This process of shooting independently and then coming together to integrate stories helped strengthen the journalists’ relationships with one another.

The teams worked through every decision together—from how many minutes to allocate to the Albanian and Serbian perspectives in the film to where to edit. During marathon editing sessions, the regional teams wove their stories together into one documentary. The final product was a series of three 30-minute films from three different parts of Kosovo, each with an ethnic Kosovo Albanian and Kosovo Serbian perspective.

The series, “Looking to the Future,,” was first screened in several Serb and Albanian communities, providing local audiences with a rare chance to see how the other ethnic group lives and to hear what is on their mind. 

“We are in a position to present, in a more realistic manner, the real life of the citizens of Kosovo to the viewers that are not familiar with the representatives of the Albanian or Serb communities,” said Mirjana Nedeljkovic, a Kosovo Serb journalist.

The films were received positively and started conversations in the local communities. Eighty-two percent of those who filled out feedback forms thought that the series gave them some insights into the other community’s perspectives on Kosovo’s future. And 79 percent felt more positively about the future of Albanian-Serb relations in Kosovo.

After those initial screenings, six local television stations in Kosovo broadcast the series. Next, the public television station broadcast a condensed version of the series territory-wide on a Friday evening in prime time.   

Tackling Tough Subjects

The camaraderie created through this Kosovo Team Reporting Initiative was so strong that the journalists and cameramen continued to work together after Looking to the Future was completed.

In early August 2006, the teams met again to plan a TV magazine series focused on social issues, with AED’s diverse Albanian and Serbian staff in Kosovo—Nenad Maksimovic, Nejme Kotere, and Fatmir Haziri—serving as the production team.

From Safe Spaces to Social Change

AED’s “journalism for peace” process in Kosovo created partnerships between local broadcast media to create safe spaces in which citizens could share their views with one another.

Now, AED and the reporting teams are producing a series of four television documentaries that focus on helping citizens voice their concerns about the Kosovo status proposal directly to politicians. The latest episodes produced by the teams include question-and-answer exchanges between citizens and decision makers.

“It is important that dialogue between communities grows from the grassroots level to the policymaking level,” said Michael Kott, vice president and director of the AED Center for Civil Society and Governance. “That dimension is needed for sustainable peace to take root in divided societies.”