On 9 November 2018, in The Hague, the Netherlands, the high school students from the municipality of Jajce in Bosnia and Herzegovina were awarded the 2018 Max van der Stoel Award in recognition of their outstanding courage and inspirational activism, which led to the prevention of further segregation in schools in Jajce as well as throughout the country.
The students successfully resisted the local authorities’ decision to establish a new ethnically segregated school in the municipality in 2016.
The award, co-sponsored by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) and the Dutch Foreign Ministry, recognizes extraordinary and outstanding achievements in improving the position of national minorities across the OSCE countries.
Read this press release about the award ceremony and watch the photo gallery from the event.
Learn more about the winners' story here.
The official justification letter of the jury is available here in Bosnian, Croatian, English and Serbian.
Meet the members of the jury here.
For more information about the Max van der Stoel Award read this factsheet.