Advije Jashanica is a lovely Kosovar Albanian woman living in the Northern part of divided Mitrovica, where the majority of population consists of Serbian people. Even though sometimes she feels unwelcome here, this does not restrain her from the active public role. Together with two other guys, Sokol and Naser, Advije runs a local NGO – Association for Peace Kosov@ (AFPK).

At the moment AFPK is involved in implementing few very important projects, such as helping Roma children to integrate better into local educational system. “I like those children. It is a pity, that they still live in that bad conditions”, Advije says. However, she admits, that it is the problem of Roma community itself as well, because parents do not show enough interest to push their children at least to finish the school. According to her, they are more concerned with sending their kids into the streets rather than to school. “This is why, first, we have to educate parents”, she says.

AFPK also works with the ICP project, committed to support rural development in Kosovo, and namely in of its milk sector, as a mean of intercommunity cooperation. Advije says that it is very different from what she has been doing, and therefore she likes it. She explains that people in Kosovo are used to get from the ‘internationals’ direct material support, without putting their own attempts to improve the situation. But the thing is that Kosovo does not need it anymore. AFPK together with its partners have realised it and now are changing their strategy towards the project management. Instead of giving direct support to them AFPK and ICP are more keen to involve the locals in improving the situation themselves. However, only few of them share this attitude. Therefore, Advije is cautious in making any predictions: “It can be so hard, but maybe they (four participants from each community, representing four different, but cooperative sectors: farmers, business associations, education centers and local authorities) will find some solution for farmers in terms of milk prices and for milk factories in terms of bigger share in the market”.

Besides those projects, Advije already has some plans for the future. She says that in the Southern part of Mitrovica situation in public health sector is very difficult. There people are forced to pay for every simple procedure, even for anaesthetic injections. Yet the quality of this service, according to her, very often is catastrophic. Taking this into consideration, she has been thinking about the possibility to establish at least one medical cabinet in one Southern school for pupils. But Advije is afraid that some bigger NGO’s may absorb all international money and use them in a wrong way, thus leaving AFPK without so necessary resources.

All those issues make her to be concerned with the future of Mitrovica and its people. She is disappointed with the high level of unemployment in the city. According to her, vast majority of good businessmen, who are able to offer a job, go out to Pristina, therefore the situation in Mitrovica is not improving. Besides, she is worried about still present tension between the North and the South of the city. She says that in the last ten years nothing has changed dramatically. People still are full of suspiciousness towards each other and some more decades have to pass to make it different. But this is a notion pushing Advije to work forward for the sake of Kosovo people.