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Andjela Mirkovic, a Kosovo Serb from Gracanica, and Diellza Geci, a Kosovo Albanian from Pristina, first met at the Rochester Institute of Technology Kosovo, a private university in Pristina, and became close friends.
Both are 22 and have become involved in projects aimed at bringing Kosovo’s estranged communities together in a country which is officially a multi-ethnic state but where divisions still loom large and post-war reconciliation efforts are few.
“I wish for the day when our friendship and collaboration is not the story, but our enmity is. But we live in a divided society with invisible lines dividing us - literally there are borders, not tangible ones that are policed, but in the form of segregation between ethnic groups,” said Geci.
Inevitably, they have different backgrounds and different views about how Kosovo’s troubled past should be approached.
While Mirkovic believes that “the past should be left behind and we should move forward into the future”, Geci thinks it is “a mistake to forget the past”.
“Nevertheless, we want to show the world and other generations that youngsters cannot be used as an excuse to not talk to each other and not collaborate,” said Mirkovic.
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