Mission
The Western Balkans Peace Museum is a bridge connecting, reconciling, and uniting current and future generations for peace and reconciliation in the Western Balkans.
Our mission is to play a leading role in conflict transformation, broadening the public imagination about what is possible and desirable to establish meaningful peace, reconciliation, and tolerance in the region.
Vision
The Western Balkans Peace Museum seeks to help cultivate a culture of tolerance and truth in the region—fertile conditions upon which peaceful, pluralist democratic societies can thrive and blossom.
Values
Our mission and vision is guided by five principles: accountability, co-existence, empathy, truth, and tolerance.
Accountability: We believe that accountability is necessary for any society in which personal, political, economic, and social freedoms are promised. Our collections and programmes are designed to educate the public about past and ongoing injustices and inspire them to be active citizens against injustice in their own communities.
Coexistence: We believe that coexistence—not just living side-by-side, but together—makes us not only unique, but stronger. The museum is designed as a meeting place for people from diverse social backgrounds to come together to learn from each other and recognize our shared humanity and common destiny.
Empathy: We believe that empathy is an important skill for fostering peacebuilding and reconciliation. Our collections and programmes are designed to evoke empathy for the other, in addition to understanding, in a way that will inspire viewers to act and believe in more peaceful ways towards people outside their own groups.
Truth: We believe that a shared understanding of what happened in the past is necessary for building a peaceful society. Our collections and programmes are designed to evoke critical discussion about the past—both positive and tragic events—to help people come to terms with what happened and move forward together.
Tolerance: We believe that tolerance—mutual understanding and basic respect of differences between people—is what holds diverse societies together. Our collections and programmes are designed to rebuild mutual understanding and basic respect between people who suffered through war in an effort to contribute to a culture of peace.