Sarajevo Debates
A youth-led civic dialogue platform in Sarajevo, where critical thinking and respectful disagreement meet the politics of memory. SO.. carried the logistics and the reach.
Sarajevo Debates is a youth-led platform for civic dialogue in Sarajevo. It exists for a simple, difficult reason: in a country where the past is rarely settled, it is easier to pick a side than to understand the argument. The platform puts the hard questions on the floor, from the politics of memory to the future of democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and asks people to stop consuming information and start understanding it.
This house believes the past is not settled.
Sarajevo Debates puts the hard questions on the floor and keeps both sides in the room. Turn each card over.
The divisions we keep retelling
Meet the first generation
03 / Through the lens
Move across the frame: the young people who put the questions on the floor.
Inside the room
04 / The room
We did not author the debates. We gave a youth civic program the things that let it reach people: the logistics behind each session and its central event, and the promotion that put a difficult, non-partisan conversation in front of an audience. The argument stayed theirs. We built the stage and filled the room.
Sarajevo Debates was supported by
“Stop consuming information. Start understanding it.”
A youth-led civic dialogue platform in Sarajevo, where critical thinking and respectful disagreement meet the politics of memory. SO.. carried the logistics and the reach.
- Client
- Sarajevo Debates
- Year
- 2024-2025
- Cohort
- First generation
- Central event
- Europe House, Sarajevo
- Partners
- EU · NL · OSCE · HIA
- Stance
- Non-partisan
Challenge
In a country where the past is rarely settled and public conversation hardens quickly into sides, the platform needed to make disagreement productive rather than divisive. The work was to give a young, non-partisan program a credible public presence and a real audience, without flattening difficult subject matter or pretending the questions were easy.
Approach
SO.. supported the program as a communication and logistics partner. We helped shape how Sarajevo Debates presented itself, planned and ran the practicalities behind its sessions and its central event, and built the promotional rhythm that carried each conversation to a wider audience. The editorial line stayed the platform's own: respectful disagreement, evidence over volume.
Outcome
Sarajevo Debates reached its first generation of young debaters and put difficult questions on the floor in public, with a recognized central event and institutional partners behind it. SO..'s contribution was the scaffolding: the logistics that let the sessions happen and the promotion that gave them an audience.