What we do

BGET aims to humanise history by replacing faceless statistics and numbers with real human experience through the medium of storytelling.​

The Bosnian war exposed just how vulnerable and fragile society can be and that we must never be complacent or take peace for granted. One of the key lessons from Bosnia is that peace is more than just the absence of war: it is our everyday actions through which war is made less likely. Our work creates an ideal opportunity to inspire critical thinking, empathy, personal growth, and awareness of social issues such as homelessness, food poverty, refugees etc. We hope to encourage personal acts of peace in our everyday lives.

Just as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission helped to create a foundation for peace through the telling of stories after apartheid, we hope that sharing the truth of genocide survivors can contribute to the promotion of peace and acts of kindness here in the UK.

Our goal is that BGET will act as a repository for the stories and artefacts of people who experienced the genocide in Bosnia first-hand, particularly those who came to the UK as refugees, and to become the cornerstone of all future research, educational and creative material on the subject.

We want to provide future generations with an invaluable resource so we may learn lessons from what happened in Bosnia in the 1990s to help us work towards a better future here in the UK.

“History rounds skeletons off to zero. A thousand and one is still a thousand. The one, as if he had never been.”

Hunger camp at Jasło, Wisława Szymborska

How we do it

Resources

Our resources include the UK Bosnian Memory Archive, which provides educational material that can be read or listened to at events, or used as a basis for educational activities for both children and adults, and also a range of other storytelling projects such as podcasts, songs, poetry, film, and photography. ​

Outreach

We use survivor stories to create programmes that aim to challenge the perceptions of social justice, morality and human rights. These programmes allow more opportunity for deeper engagement and personal reflection for participants.

"An excellent opportunity for students to listen to first hand accounts of genocide and to become aware that it extends beyond the Holocaust of WWII."

J.Anderson, St. Cuthbert's Catholic High School