Dear Supporter
Thank you for your support of the Community of Bosnia Foundation (COB). I can assure you your contribution has made a tangible difference.
Thanks to your generous gifts the COB Student Program has been able to find new scholarships at outstanding American schools for many more Bosnian students whose educational opportunities were being destroyed by the attack against their homeland. Each scholarship provides renewed hope and future horizons to the student and student's family, helps prepare a new generation of leaders for Bosnia, and by bringing Bosnians into American schools, shatters the stereotypes that have been used to justify the appeasement of genocide against Bosnians. For every $100 we have received in contributions, we have been able to obtain more than $3000 in scholarship aid.
To date COB has helped secure scholarships at the following colleges and universities; Brown University, Bryn Mawr College, Duke University, Haverford College (2), Lamar University (2), Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, St. Joseph's University, Swarthmore College, University of Pennsylvania, and West Chester University. We have secured scholarships at the following high schools; Friends Central School, Friends Select School, George School, Germantown Friends School, The Penn Charter School, Westtown Friends High School, and Wilmington Friends School (2).
The COB Arts Program has just brought a stunning exhibition to Haverford College created by Bosnian artist Aida Mesanovic: Sarajevo Expo '92. This exhibition features 17 artist of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds from the former Yugoslavia. These works were created during the worst shelling of the siege of Sarajevo. Ms. Musanovic spoke at Haverford College on October 29, 1995 about her exhibit during a symposium on Art, Religion, and Cultural Survival. Sarajevo Expo Ô92 will be on display through November. We are now working with Bosnian artists, architects, librarians, and art book publishers to preserve the culture that the nationalist extremists would like to destroy. We are working with writers to translate the memoirs of survivors of concentration camps, and we are actively supporting war-crimes investigations. Our first publication, the VHS videotape by Andras Riedlmayer, Killing Memory: Bosnia's Cultural Heritage and Its Destruction, has generated enormous support and increased understanding of Bosnia, and it has been accepted for the Middle East Studies Association film festival.
The Community of Bosnia foundation was formed to support a culturally pluralistic, multi-religious Bosnia-Herzegovina and assist Bosnians in tangible ways. Thanks to your generous contributions we have accomplished a lot; there is still quite a lot to do. Enclosed is our last newsletter. If you have already received a copy, would you please pass it on to another interested person? A new newsletter is now in preparation.
Thank you,
Prof. Michael A. Sells, COB President
Walter J. Lee, COB Coordinator