‘Resilient Peace’ is a project aimed at addressing peace, reconciliation, and cooperation on multiple scales, and close neighborhoods currently at the risk of high conflict. YAK, together with its partners, advocates for youth-centered socially cohesive societies and building resilience for future conflicts with a special focus on border areas. This action will mobilize young people and civil society leaders from 4 countries (North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina) to participation in the awareness raising activities about the Bilateral Youth Cooperation Offices methodology. It is consisted of two-layered actions: a) Initial meeting that took place during the youth panel of the Prespa Forum for Dialogue, 2022   b) Youth-lens on peace and reconciliation Conference. The project strives towards developing a complex understanding of peace and reconciliation through developing Peace and Reconciliation System Maps, and ideating around enabling different stakeholders working on the issues of peace, reconciliation, in post-conflict countries to transfer this model of cooperation to their community with the goal to support creating socially inclusive societies.

The first activity took place from 16th to 18th of June, where 14 young people and civil society leaders from North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina gathered in Ohrid to discuss about peace, reconciliation, and cooperation. Special Representative to the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar and Ambassador Byrnes had the opportunity to join in on part of the sessions, engage with participants and hear some of the conclusions from the conference. The exceptional individuals that were present on this event showed what it means to have peace as the end goal through their actions, advocacy and involvement.

As a result of the first activity a POLICY STATEMENT was created with a focus on the young people.

The second activity - Youth Lens on Peace and Reconciliation Conference - is the key event of the project ‘Resilient Peace - A Voice for Young People’. The conference brought together more than 50 participants from the Western Balkan region (North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo). Taking place also in Ohrid from the 13th to the 15th of November, the conference focused on young people and their skills in creating a positive and resilient peace which will create a ripple effect of reconciliation and cooperation.

The project is led by Youth Alliance-Krusevo and supported by the U.S. Embassy in North Macedonia.