Sanja Drnovsek

Institute For Research of Genocide Canada (IGC)

Prof. Emir Ramic

President of the Governing Board 

 info@instituteforgenocide.org

RE: Recommendation for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

Date: 04.06.2025.

I have known Sanja Seferovi? Drnovšek as an educator, activist and author for more than twenty years. We worked together on a number of different projects while she was the President of the Governing Board of Bosnian American Institute for Research of Genocide and Education Center. Sanja is a member of the International Expert Team of the IGC.

What I would especially like to highlight is her master endeavor for the recognition of the Bosnian language in North America, her wonderfully creative role in the institutionalization of the Srebrenica genocide remembrance culture in North America, her enormous contribution to the affirmation of the youth literature not only in North America, but worldwide. Her children’s books (in Bosnian and bilingual in Bosnian and English) have been represented in afterschool and weekend schools of the Bosnian language for children.

Thus, Sanja is a true ambassador of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian culture, history and tradition, of the Bosnian language, remembrance culture, but also an ambassador of the youth literature. In truth, she is an ambassador of the Bosnian Idea and the Bosnian spirit, that unique answer to  the human civilization to the question of how important it is to accept, acknowledge and respect another human being, possibly different than we are, as a way human kind and civilization can exist.

I also know Sanja as a humanist, scientific researcher, lawyer, reporter and author whose efforts have contributed to the world’s better understanding on Bosnia and Herzegovina, to its learning the truth on the aggression towards the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the genocide of its citizens. What fascinated me the most and what most important for all of us is must be Sanja’s constant effort to teach our children, and all children in the world in general, about the beauty of the Bosnian Idea and the Bosnian spirit, that exceptional Bosnian-Herzegovinian response to the future of people and civilization, which can only be achieved through acceptance, respect, acknowledgement and tolerance of others, as the most important motto of the human existence and progress. In that work of hers, Sanja confronts social injustice by calling for each individual to take an active role in society, relying on education and honesty as crucial basic elements for such actions.

By connecting with people who come from different ethnic groups for a common, humanistic cause, Sanja, actually, shows us the example of how an intelligent, educated woman should manage challenges of  the modern civilization.

Sanja’s energy for her motto is drawn from various family members: Mensur Seferovi?, her father – a historian, writer, anti-fascist fighter and survivor of WWII prison camp; Šefika Seferovi?, her mother – also an active member in People’s Liberation War; as well as Selena, her sister, the founder and the former President of the Governing Board of the Bosnian Library in Chicago.

It is my strong belief that people like Sanja, who is an educator and author, should be praised in ways which would serve as guidelines for others to continue her journey.

                                                                                               Prof. Emir Ramic

                                                                                   President of the Governing Board (IGC)