Bosnia: Valentina Pellizzer, World One See director

Name: Valentina Pellizzer

Job Title: director of World One See, South East Europe?s third sector news portal (www.worldonesee.org)

How long have you been working in the Third sector?
Since 1992

What is World One See?
A regional web-portal written in our languages (Albanian, Macedonian and Serbian-Bosnian) that gives information about civil society to civil society. We cover all the Balkans thanks our network made up of 11 contributors from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. Our aim is to exchange tips and give voice to initiatives in order to enhance awareness of the third sector. Everything is on line because we believe in the open source method.

What drove you to the Balkans?
At first, astonishment for the war. I started by working for a health project in Croatia in 1994 with the Cric (Regional Centre of Intervention and Cooperation), the NGO I collaborated with in Italy. In Croatia, I met my partner, who is Bosnian. Then I worked for a couple of year in Bosnia and we decided to move to Sarajevo.

What are the main challenges for Bosnian civil society?
First of all unemployment (40 % of the population doesn?t have a job), then the lack of an efficient sanitary system, corruption of the state representatives and, as a consequence, the lack of participation by the citizens.

What most surprises you about the Bosnian third sector?
Adaptability. Nobody helps you! Many NGOs or associations don?t receive governmental funds. To work in the Bosnian third sector you have to be very pragmatic: set the target, work hard and save money.

How did the third sector develop after the civil war?
After the war, there were only the big NGOs, foundations and national cooperation agencies, who had a specific strategy to follow in order to solve the basic problems. Then, Bosnian Ngos and citizens? associations took over and they had to learn how to work in this field. For example, they needed to understand that it is important to specialize and to chose a target, while in the past they proposed various projects in order to obtain more public funds. Now there is the third generation of Ngos (for example One World See) who are becoming active in political lobbying.

Do you consider the western European third sector as a model?
Well, using the western third sector as a model is quite frustrating for us as our environments are very different. We prefer to look to the Slovenian third sector as we have a more similar history and we have to deal with the same problems, such as few public funds and the legacy of a communist system. We also find it very interesting to collaborate with the third sector in Italy?s south as we both have the problem of a social disgregation (here because of the war, there because of criminal organizations) and we both try to find solutions. I firmly belive in these kinds of South to South cooperation.

What do you think are the main challenges for the European third sector?
The opportunity to work with the for profit sector. Sometimes we think in ideological terms that we (the non-profit sector) are the ?pure? and the for-profit sector are the inpure. This is a mistake, especially in Bosnia as we are in no position to make this distinction. Cooperation with the profit sector is a neccessary step.

A useful website you would suggest to VitaEurope's readers?
www.oneworldsee.org of course!

If you want to get in touch with Valentina, please write to staff@vitaeurope.org