The training program on the Information System

The Research and Documentation Centre, in cooperation and with the support of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized the conference Information System for Human Rights Organizations, June 23rd- 27th 2008, at the RDC's Library and Club, in Sarajevo.

In June 2007 the Research and Documentation Centre completed the project "Human Losses in Bosnia-Herzegovina 1991-1995". As the result of four years of extensive fieldwork, a highly specialized Information System (a unique and comprehensive digital database of people who were killed and who went missing during the war) was created. The achievements of the RDC's project are widely recognized by research institutions, universities and civil society organizations across the world. The RDC decided to share this knowledge and experience gained during the documentation and research of wartime human rights violations, and to present its Information System (IS) as a possible universal tool for facing the past in post conflict societies.

The aim of the training was to increase the capacity of others from conflict-torn communities in their work on conflict transformation and peace building, based on the concepts of truth seeking, truth keeping and truth telling.

A five-day long training program was attended by representatives of nongovernmental organizations dedicated to documenting human rights violations in conflict and post-conflict societies. The participating organizations were:

• Directorate of Information of Human Rights, Directorate General of Human Rights, Department of Law and Human Rights, Indonesia

• Project for the Recuperation of the National Police Historic Archives, of the Guatemala Ombudsman Office , Guatemala

• gain the general knowledge about the RDC's Information System, with a special focus on the digital database of killed and missing persons on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1991-1995,

• see interactive multimedia presentations of information systems of other participating organizations,

• discuss and exchange experiences based on presentations of the work of the participants,

Participants of the seminar evaluated their experiences as professionally organized and very useful, giving some practical and conceptual guidance that can be adapted to their own work, and expressed wishes to continue with professional cooperation.

"The seminar was useful for me and my organization that is now setting up several activities in facing the Burundi 's past, trough commission that will be created in coming days."
"The content of the seminar was excellent. We learned everything on database and IS that RDC uses to collect data, regarding human rights violation that had been committed during the war."
"I think that in our organization only think in our problems without knowing things about other places. It was really emotional for me to know some same situations here and my country. I'm happy because I know that we're not alone fighting for the future."
"We need to get together to share more about development in our countries."
"Hope that these groups will continue communicating and coordinating in the future (sharing ideas and new methods/findings)."
"The trip to Srebrenica was very well organized and extremely moving. It gave me some additional perspective to the war."