ORIGIN

The idea for creating the Observatory on the Balkans emerged in Venice, during the “Cantieri di pace”, peace events of June 1999, to answer the request for tools to develop informed but also critical interventions in southeast Europe.


PROMOTORS

- Fondazione Opera Campana dei Caduti (Peace Bell Foundation) adopted the project, which came into existence in 2000, and placed it side by side with the other project supported by the Foundation: UNIP - Università Internazionale delle Istituzioni dei Popoli per la Pace (International University of People's Institutions for Peace). The Foundation, a non-profit organisation founded in 1968 with a presidential decree, pays particular attention, among its goals, to the education of youth about a culture of peace, non-violence and human rights.

- Forum Trentino per la Pace e i Diritti Umani (Forum Trentino for Peace and Human Rights) is a permanent organisation devoted to ensuring civil society's participation in the implementation of the provincial law from 10 June 1991, n. 11 “Promotion and diffusion of peace culture.”


SPONSOR ORGANISATIONS

- Autonomous Province of Trento - Council Department for International Solidarity gives its direct support to the initiatives and activities of the Observatory through a multiyear agreement organised with the Peace Bell Foundation. The Province promotes and supports international solidarity with diverse projects of decentralised cooperation in the Balkans; e.g. promotion of the Trentino-Kosovo Association and supporting the Prijedor Project Association and the Trentino Roundtable with Kraljevo Association. The province is also active in other parts of the world.

- Municipality of Rovereto supports through a multiyear agreement the Peace Bell Foundation’s promotion of peace and human rights culture. The Municipality also places the Palazzo Adami building at the projects’ disposal. The Municipality also promotes decentralised cooperation activities belonging - along with other local organizations and associations - the Trentino Roundtable with Kraljevo. The Centro di Educazione Permanente alla Pace (Centre of Permanent Peace Education) is also operating in Rovereto - founded in 1992 after an agreement between the Municipality and the Committee of the Associations for Peace and Human Rights.



OTHER SUPPORTERS

- Trentino-Südtirol Autonomous Region has contributed in 2000 to the project's launching and institution and in 2005 to the organisation of the annual congress of the Observatory: “In-between Europe.”

- Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto (Mutual/trustee savings bank of Trento and Rovereto Foundation) has sponsored in 2006 a research course dedicated to the Balkan cinema industry from the 1970s to the present. From 2000 to 2002, the Observatory’s research activities have been part of the enlarged convention drawn up with the Peace Bell Foundation to support its study and educational activities about peace and human rights.

- European Commission in 2006 funded a project about the significance of former Yugoslavia's Second World War Memorials in the transmission of the memory of the conflict and the promotion of anti-fascism and brotherhood among the nations. The monumental parks involved in the project include Jasenovac (in Croatia), Kozara and Sutjeska (in Bosnia-Herzegovina).

- Municipality of Trento has been a partner of the Observatory on the Balkans since the beginning of the project.