July 11, 2007

New York - Block by block, new homes are replacing the charred remains of buildings in Canton 10, a province in western Bosnia Herzegovina. Residents are returning to the area's once idyllic communities, where dairy cows produced enough milk to sustain generations of families.

The houses are changing into homes as families live in them. Yet outside every front door, bombed-out factories and barren pastures serve as a reminder not only of the war that displaced families 15 years ago, but also of the challenges of Canton 10's future.

"Not so many organizations pay attention, but it's seen huge destruction," Church World Service (CWS) regional director Vitali Vorona said. "Belgrade has been rebuilt but not many places look like Belgrade. In Canton 10, it looks like the war was finished yesterday."

Factories and agriculture drove Canton 10's economy before Serb militias sought to turn much of Bosnia into an ethnic state in 1992. Now Catholics, Orthodox Christian Serbs and Muslim Bozniaks are returning. There's little infrastructure for jobs or economic self-sufficiency, but that is changing.

"What started as an emergency shelter program became a holistic means to recovery," CWS Emergency Response Program Director Donna Derr said. "Ultimately, it's a larger effort to help regain livelihoods."

CWS supports microenterprise programs through which small family businesses can be born. As more and more residents return, the need for a broader economic recovery grows.

Enter the CWS Balkans: Build a Village program, a comprehensive, multi-year approach to helping rural communities recover. The idea is to empower communities, helping them chart their own paths, enabling returnees with economic tools such as loans. At its core, the program is ultimately implemented and operated by local constituencies.

"It's important that it's not us deciding, it's them deciding how they'll achieve economic empowerment," Derr said.

For example, a tiered chain of three panels will decide projects to be supported by the entrepreneurial fund. Local leaders will decide which enterprises should receive a commitment, or loan, thereby giving communities the power of decision and fostering self-sufficiency. A group of community leaders selected Balkans: Build a Village's first project, in the Canton 10 municipality of Bosansko Grahovo. The leaders chose to support a veterinary service to help local farmers maintain the health of their livestock. Healthy livestock means farmers can operate sustainable farms.

"What was amazing is that the first Balkans: Build a Village project, identified by the local people, was a project to help a whole municipality, not just a few villagers," said Tatiana Dwyer, associate director for CWS social and economic development. "They completely determined the need themselves, something that will benefit the whole community."

In five villages, locals serve on village committees that will decide which projects the CWS Balkans: Build a Village program will support.

Dwyer just returned from Canton 10, where she observed an "amazing energy and willingness of the local people to break a vicious cycle of dependency on outside aid."

"The only way for us to survive is to become self-sufficient," said Dušan Radivojša, a member of the Crni Lug village committee in Bosansko Grahovo. Radivojša anticipates the committee will support forming a milk collection cooperative, so family dairy farmers can process their products on a greater economy of scale.

Families have a long-standing tradition in cattle breeding and milk production in Bosansko Grahovo. Around 700 families there secure their livelihoods through animal husbandry and farming, but there is no organized milk collection. Through a cooperative, as many as 70 families would be able to sell milk that, beyond family consumption, now is used only to feed chickens, pigs and other cattle.

Even though CWS has worked on economic development in Canton 10 for nearly a decade, the heightened focus on self-sufficiency is timely. European Union troops wind down their peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina this year, affording the people of Canton 10 a profound opportunity to ensure their own peace and prosperity in replacing the ruins of war with homes and livelihoods.

Media Contact: Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676; lcrosson@churchworldservice.org