Program Overview
Vital Voices Global Partnership invites you to apply for the Intergenerational Fellowship on Women, Peace and Security in South Central Europe (“Peace Fellowship”). The Peace Fellowship is a year-long program that seeks to engage twenty (20) established and emerging women leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, and Croatia (five from each country) to advance intergenerational efforts to prevent and respond to gender-based violence (“GBV”) to advance the Women, Peace, and Security (“WPS”) movement in the region. The Peace Fellowship is a project of Vital Voices under the Voices Against Violence: The Gender-Based Violence Global Initiative, which aims to improve protections and access to justice and resources for advocates, survivors, and survivor-advocates of GBV.
The Peace Fellowship will include tailored trainings, peer-to-peer learning and intergenerational mentorship, networking, and grant opportunities for Peace Fellows. It will include both virtual and in-person activities depending on the evolving COVID-19 situation and traveling guidelines provided by the authorities of participants’ respective countries. The call for applications is open to women leaders who work on preventing and responding to GBV in order to advance the WPS movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo and Serbia. Diversity of thought, culture, background, and perspective are critical to advancing WPS. We welcome the unique contributions of diverse applicants in terms of their education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, color, religion, disability, sexual orientation and beliefs.
Please note that the Peace Fellowship is an unpaid fellowship. However, if in-person activities take place, Vital Voices will pay for all costs related to these meetings (food, insurance, travel, and accommodation). The working languages of the Peace Fellowship will be Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Albanian. Simultaneous interpretation will be provided. The Peace Fellowship is a program funded by the United States State Department.
Background Information
United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on Women, Peace, Security was adopted on October 31, 2000 (S/RES/1325, 2000). A result of joint advocacy by women’s civil society organizations and national and international governing bodies, the resolution recognizes the disproportionate impact of conflict on civilians, particularly on women and children, and emphasizes the importance of women’s protection, equal participation, and a gender perspective in peace and security processes, peacekeeping, humanitarian response, conflict prevention, disarmament, reintegration, and rehabilitation programs. Importantly, it also demands an end to impunity for war crimes, with an emphasis on wartime sexual and gender-based violence (WSGBV) committed against women and girls. Implementation of UNSCR 1325 is the responsibility of all UN member states, but is particularly important for countries that are at risk of, undergoing, or emerging from violent conflict, and for countries in transition to peace and democracy.
The United States adopted its first National Action Plan to implement UNSCR 1325 in 2011 and subsequently revised it in 2016. Consistent with the WPS Act of 2017, the U.S. Strategy on WPS (President of the United States, 2019) was adopted in 2019 and has three strategic objectives: 1) supporting and increasing the meaningful participation of women around the world in conflict and crisis related decision-making processes; 2) promoting the human rights of women and girls, easing their access to aid, and protecting them from all forms of violence; and 3) adjusting international U.S. programs in order to improve the empowerment of women and girls. In 2020, the U.S. Department of State released the Department of State’s Plan to Implement the U.S. Strategy on WPS to enhance demonstrable progress towards its strategic objectives (The Department of State, 2020). The Peace Fellowship aims to contribute to the implementation of both strategies through its focus on intergenerational efforts to prevent and respond to GBV and improve access to justice for GBV survivors as part of the broader WPS framework.