The project
includes a two-day conference in Novi Pazar and publishing of a book of conference
proceedings. The conference agenda focuses real life problems plaguing all residents
without exception, realistic modes of harnessing the region's potential for overall
development and, above all, the necessity to foster Sandzak's multiethnic and
multiconfessional identity by its citizens themselves.
As such, the project aims at identifying the real life problems
challenging Sandzak citizens regardless of their religious or political affiliations,
triggering off the potential of Sandzak's "dormant" intelligentsia and
"moderates" for the region's wellbeing, bringing to table representatives of
opposing political parties and religious factions, raising public awareness about the
necessity to have the Sandzak "time bomb" dismantled by the people living there
and at helping local political factors to articulate the region's true interests, instead
of allowing the official Belgrade to make decisions on their behalf. The Novi Pazar
conference is so planned as to provide realistic guidelines to Serbia's policymakers for
more adequate political arrangements for the region, decentralization included.
The project is realized with the assistance of the US Embassy in
Belgrade.
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