“Peace begins when we see and accept each other fully.”

With these words, Ivona Raič, a 24-year-old pharmacy student from Mostar, captured the quiet power of human connection, one that transcends theory and becomes action. Her experience volunteering with children and youth with developmental disabilities at the Los Rosales Center revealed a deeper truth: peace is not a distant ideal, but something we build every day through empathy, kindness, and recognition of each other’s dignity.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, where peace is often equated with the mere absence of conflict, a new generation of young people is challenging that narrow definition. For them, peace is active, it’s built through dialogue, solidarity, and the everyday work of bridging divides. It’s about listening as much as speaking, and reaching out instead of turning away.

This spring, young people from across the country came together in Sarajevo, Tuzla, and Mostar for a series of youth seminars organized by the Jericho Foundation in cooperation with UNFPA, as part of the regional initiative “Youth 4 Inclusion, Equality and Trust”. These gatherings created space not only for learning, but for healing, offering practical tools for emotional intelligence, leadership, and non-violent communication, all grounded in the values of social cohesion and intercultural dialogue.

For Merjem Berbić, a 23-year-old science student from Sarajevo, volunteering with the humanitarian organization Pomozi.ba was a turning point. “The people I met, volunteers, donors, those helping others selflessly for years, showed me what true peace looks like. It’s not a theory. It’s built in everyday acts of solidarity”, she said. Through the seminar, she learned how to translate these values into concrete leadership skills and find strength in community.

In Tuzla, young participants worked with children from the Roma community of Kiseljak, supporting them with schoolwork and language learning. “These children live in challenging conditions, but their spirit is strong”, said Dragan Vlajnić, a 22-year-old law student from Banja Luka. “Working with them reminded me that equality and inclusion are not abstract concepts, they are something we practice through our presence and engagement.” The experience, he said, gave him new insight into how lasting change is built from the ground up.

Beyond volunteering, participants engaged in workshops led by experts in communication and business, and were mentored by alumni of the program, young leaders already building change in their communities.

The Jericho Foundation, founded in 2000 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, began with a scholarship for one student from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today, it’s a comprehensive program offering financial aid, leadership development, and mentorship for dozens of youth, with a central focus on peacebuilding and fostering social cohesion across ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic divides.

For the past two years, this work has been supported by UNFPA in Bosnia and Herzegovina through the “Youth 4 Inclusion, Equality and Trust” initiative, funded by the UN Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund, with additional support from the Embassy of Italy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These seminars are not just about learning, they are launching pads for transformation. The young people who take part aren’t waiting for peace to happen. They’re creating it.