Bosnia Initiatives for Local Development 97 HasanaBrkicaTuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina www.bildbosnia.org
Selection Committee
March 23, 2015
Topic: Elizabeth Zhou; Tuzla/Doboj Summer Institute in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dear Selection Committee,
May this letter serve as an official acceptance letter committing our organization to providing a summer internship to Elizabeth Zhou in 2015. Through extensive interviews, we have been impressed with Elizabeth’s determination, her articulate thoughtful questions, cheerful positive presence and with her personal interests which connect so very well with the needs of our program.
From late May to the end of July 2015, our organization will implement two ambitious summer institutes that span two cities in northeastern Bosnia, bridge former confrontation lines from the Bosnian War (1992-1995) and include over 300 youth participants from all of Bosnia's diverse cultural groups.
As an intern in our organization, Elizabeth will have an opportunity to make a significant contribution to all aspects of our program helping us achieve the four main outcomes that we pursue each year through our summer program:
OUTCOME 1: Participants will have a highly meaningful experience that will increase their skills, their critical thinking, and their dreams for the future thereby helping them prepare for their academic, professional and civic careers.
OUTCOME 2: There will be newly enthused and meaningful relationships among students, and between students and BILD, such that at the end of the summer we have a productive volunteer community that can continue to create and implement projects that serve BILD's mission.
OUTCOME 3: There will be strengthened relationships between BILD and local/international organizations that can help us sustain our projects through financial and in-kind donations as well as political and moral support.
OUTCOME 4: We will have developed tools, systems, documents, and on-line processes that will make the annual implementation of the summer institutes a more standardized and less labor- intensive enterprise.
A summer internship at BILD is an intense, rewarding and unique experience as interns are given immense responsibility in a demanding, culturally sensitive setting. In fact, the success of our program is wholly dependent on the internship team.
Interns help manage and implement the Tuzla Summer Institute which takes place in a predominantly Bosniak city and the Doboj Summer Institute which takes place in a predominantly Serbian city. Both institutes teach practical skills that help prepare young people for their academic studies, their professional careers and their roles as citizens in a secular multiethnic and democratic society. During a highly demanding eight weeks, interns help interview, select, and teach over 300 young people. Skills taught include English, information technology, business skills and organizational development. In addition, interns help organize and participate in extra-curricular activities that bring people of different cultures together while visiting places of cultural and historical significance.
Throughout the internship, Elizabeth will have an opportunity to work with people from all of Bosnia's main cultural groups, meet youth, community leaders and ranking politicians from both of Bosnia's two entities, and gain a deeper understanding of the means through which we utilize education and common interest activities to address some of the intractable issues that have confronted the international and local effort to bring a lasting sustainable peace to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Since 2009, the first year of our summer institutes, those who have completed our internship include students from Harvard University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, University of Michigan, and Amherst College. We would be happy if we could count Middlebury College and Elizabeth Zhou as part of our growing community supporting education here in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Best regards,
Christopher Bragdon BILD – Bosnia Initiatives for Local Development e-mail: [email protected]