Vahidin Omanovic
Vahidin Omanovic is a peacebuilder born in Bosnia and from Herzegovina.
Biography
Omanovic received his Master’s degree in International Relations with a concentration in Conflict Resolution at the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont. Additionally, he served as a teaching assistant in SIT’s Conflict Transformation Across Cultures (CONTACT) program, where he taught classes on forgiveness and conflict transformation.
In 2004 Omanovic co-founded Center for Peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has taught peace workshops and trainings throughout the world, including in Switzerland, Georgia, Germany, USA, Kosovo, North Macedonia, the Philippines, and Nepal, where he helped to found a peacebuilding organization.
In 2011, the Threshold Foundation from Germany honored Omanovic with the 5th International Bremen Peace Award, naming him the year’s “Unknown Peace Worker.” In 2014, at the Center for Peacebuilding he won a Tomorrow’s Peacebuilder peace award given by Peace Direct, UK. In 2015, he was awarded the Cohen Center’s Susan J. Herman Award for Leadership in Holocaust & Genocide Awareness (Keene, NH, USA). Omanovic has been a guest faculty member at Bennington each spring term since 2017.