This past summer, thirteen students traveled to Bosnia to participate in the eighth annual session of DU's unique program, which remains the only one of its kind operating in the Balkans. This was another exciting and challenging one for participants in the University of Denver's longest-running Project Bosnia International Service Learning Program.
Six undergraduates joined Vareš Summer School Facilitator Jill Hoefgen for the third and most successful year of the unique multiethnic program in the mountain town of Vareš. DU undergrads Joe Campe and Jennifer Pritchard were interviewed about their work with the Vareš Summer School Program for an article about the program in the Bosnian teen magazine 'Mirko' (www.mirkoonline.com)!
In the months since we returned to Denver, Bosnian schools have begun to experiment (with both success and trepidation) with ethnic integration for the first time in the postwar era. For the rest of the group in Sarajevo, this year's selection of internships afforded a diverse array of challenges, experiences and opportunities.
Carrie Shamos' interest in conflict resolution brought her to a conference on the ethnic integration of schools in Bosnia, and as a result of GSIS/MBA student Jack Dais' work with America's Development Fund, Jack is in the process of establishing a "telecottage" link between DU and civil society organizations in the Balkans. Law student David Donnelly's internship with the International Commission for Missing Persons took him and others to the exhumation site of mass grave and the corresponding DNA identification laboratory. Jessica Grether and Sara Lewis assisted agencies working on counter-trafficking initiatives and volunteered in a shelter for victims of human-trafficking. Mona Motwani worked with UNICEF on a range of child welfare issues and Leah Larson worked with the International Crisis Group to compile a comprehensive country report.
For the first time, we traveled to the eighth anniversary commemoration of the wartime massacre at Srebrenica. The group also toured Sarajevo's fifteenth-century Gazi Husref Beg Mosque, visited the tunnel used to break wartime siege lines, and had our annual Fourth of July dinner overlooking the city. Thanks in large part to the efforts of Assistant Director (and two-time participant) Sara Nickell, we were also able to enjoy an exciting weekend on the town in the Serbian capital of Belgrade and a group excursion to visit the reconstruction site of the famous Ottoman bridge in Mostar. A few of us even managed to take in a concert by regional favorite, Zabranjeno Pusenje (Smoking is Forbidden), and DU undergrad Ruth Kimball won second place in her division in the Sarajevo 10K!
After three years with the program, Sara Nickell, Jill Hoefgen and I will be taking a break from Bosnia next summer. 2002 participant and professional educator Jo Lockwood will take the reins of the Vareš Summer School Program, Mirjana Bijelic Olujic will be the Program Coordinator and longtime Project Bosnia veteran and GSIS Professor Peter VanArsdale will assume the title of Program Director. For information about the 2004 session of Project Bosnia, contact International Service Learning Coordinator Melissa Schaap at mschaap@du.edu

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