A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Sabri Ben-Achour and the Forum of Srebrenica NGOs

Sabri Ben-Achour is a Master's student at Georgetown University where he is studying foreign policy and international development. Sabri has traveled widely and worked with a variety of civil society organizations. After graduating with distinction from the University of Virginia in 2002, he lived in France and Jordan, studying French and Arabic. Sabri has also worked as a political intern with the Human Rights Campaign, the Arab American Institute, and the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom. He was born in France to Tunisian and New Zealander parents, has lived in Tunisia, grew up in the United States, and holds British citizenship.

As a participant in The Advocacy Project’s 2005 Summer Internship Program, Sabri Ben-Achour worked in Tuzla, Bosnia with the Forum of Srebrenica NGOs and Drina, one of its member organizations.

The Forum of Srebrenica NGOs was formed after the Srebrenica massacres in 1995, during which over 7,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered by Serbian nationalists. Composed of multiple organizations, the Forum for Srebrenica NGOs has helped refugees and displaced Bosnians return to the town of Srebrenica and rebuild their lives.

Since its establishment in 1996, Drina has provided assistance to displaced peoples from eastern Bosnia, particularly the Podrinje region along the Drina River that forms part of the border with Serbia. When Muslims began to return to villages around Srebrenica in 2000, Drina offered valuable support, and today it is the leading NGO in the villages. The organization emphasizes the importance of a “sustainable return” and has implemented projects training people in English, accounting, and computer literacy, increasing their employability, as well as making medical services available to Muslims who are ineligible to receive care through other programs. Drina also encourages agricultural development in the region.



While in Tuzla, Sabri worked on three main projects. In preparation for the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacres, he collated lists of family members who were dead or missing as a result of the killings. Sabri also contributed to the development of the Agricultural Cooperative Project, drafting a basic proposal for a network of agricultural cooperatives supported by central bank. He interviewed the UNDP Economic Development Coordinator for the Srebrenica Regional Recovery Project and communicated with the local US embassy and local officials for U.S. D.A. to assess the feasibility of the plan.

On his own initiative, Sabri arranged interviews with Srebrenica residents to determine how relations between the Muslim and the Serbian communities had evolved in the ten years after the massacres.

During the summer, Sabri recorded his experiences in Bosnia in the form of online blogs. In the blogs he offers thoughtful analyses of the political, economic, and social obstacles facing Bosnia, as well as striking testimony about his participation in a three day march commemorating the Srebrenica massacres.

• Sabri Ben-Achour's blog