“In the worst period of the war and still today we strive to work for reconciliation among our peoples and citizens, we strive to work for the promotion of ecumenism and dialogue” to heal “the wounds of conflict”. That’s how Franjo Topic, president of the Croatian cultural association Napredak (Progress), summed up the mission of the association founded in 1902, on the occasion of its centenary in Sarajevo. Suppressed by the Communist regime in 1949, the association resumed its activity in 1990. Today it has 66 local branches and some 20,000 members, of whom over 6,000 in Sarajevo alone. It comprises various musical groups and sports clubs, publishes three monthly magazines and runs two radio stations. During the war it distributed 403,000 meals and 436 tons of foodstuffs and medicines.
