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- background of these aims The Peace Office Outpost is a humanitarian organization with the aim to support self initiative. In that sense it is an experiment.
Peace Office Outpost (POO) is and always will remain an office of the Dutch Peace Office, based in Eindhoven. Because of that, it is automatically working both in Holland (mainly Eindhoven) and the country where it is located. The Peace Office Outpost is a second generation humanitarian organization. That means; an organization that does not focus on emergency aid, but an organization that aims at the individuals in situations where emergency aid already functions. A second generation humanitarian organization focuses on the individual people and their specific situation and needs, more than to the aim as described up front. The aim of a second generation humanitarian organization is often to enlarge the ability of the individuals in the society to protect themself socially. Psychological, political and sociological knowledge is used 'under the surface', which means without demand and not as aim, but only as side effect.
POO Sarajevo had the particular aim to stimulate the people to use the open line between the Netherlands and Bosnia Herzegovina ('between here and there'). With this task it would become easy to give simple and practical support to local youth and youth organizations in Bosnia Herzegovina and it could inform the Dutch society about the peace process in Bosnia Herzegovina, so prejudices, established during the war, could wear out.
POO often used cultural activities to reach its aims. Culture is a soft subject, it is not materialistic and it is not included in the emergency aid programs. Still the experience of art is a necessary element inside the society. Without the experience of culture, without new music, films, poetry, without new impressions, a society is doomed to follow the traditional behavior, and young people will turn away from that society. Besides that, culture speaks an international language, it spreads the word to the smallest segments of the society, it gets people in contact with those who travel, and traveling sometimes is seen as 'the most pure medium'.
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