USING MEDIA TO EMPOWER PEOPLE
Radio La Benevolencija / Humanitarian Tools Foundation (Radio Benevolencija) is a Dutch humanitarian multi-media production NGO that uses broadcast campaigns, events and grassroots activities to encourage people to become active bystanders in the face of incitement to violence. Its campaigns endeavor to use the accumulated experience of victims of ethnocentric violence who have empowered themselves and reached a peace with their former tormentors. Using academically researched methodologies, the organization strives to develop knowledge tools - guides on how to deal with an array of manipulative pressures that move individuals and whole societies to commit physical and mental harm. These tools are presented in media campaigns that use entertainment and education methods to reach audiences that have experienced , or are in danger of experiencing violence. A prototype of such a campaign is its African operation, "Great Lakes Reconciliation Radio" , a regional project that has been in operation in Rwanda , the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi since 2003.
The organization takes as its role model La Benevolencija Sarajevo , a unique local organization during the Bosnian war (1992-1995). Set up by remnants of the city's Jewish population, it was looked upon as an organization that symbolized the archetypal victims of persecution. Oddly, this was the only respected group of locals considered as neutral by the warring ethnic groups of the city, Its members acted as local interlocutors among the warring parties Uniquely, they learned to use their status to help others in situations similar to their own age-old history of persecution. During the siege of Sarajevo , they managed to supply up to 40% of the city's medicine and smuggled approximately 3,000 refugees of all ethnicities - Muslims, Serbs and Croats - out of the city as "Jews". In due time, the organization became an ethnic mix whose notion of identity was based more on a common culture, and a shared history of suffering, than any ethnicity. It came to be seen as a symbol for empathy - a group of former victims who learned to empower themselves and help others do the same, acting against the hatred fanning ethnic aggression.
Radio Benevolencija is strictly non-ethnic, non-denominational and non-governmental. It promotes an agenda of sanity, empathy and mutual help among minorities and individuals who are the target of hate speech, as well as among societies that have suffered its consequences.