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PRESS RELEASE
Linda Flynn Beekman, Quaker from Clearwater, Florida, will speak about her recent
return from the Bosnian elections and her book, "War Cake: A Witness in the Siege
of Sarajevo," Sunday, November 21st from 3:00 - 4:30 at San Jose Friends Meeting, 1041 Morse Street, San Jose.
Some people learn of war atrocities in the newspaper and on TV and radio and respond by saying, What a shame. Then they go about their business as if it never happened.
Not Linda Flynn Beekman.
In 1992, on the nightly news, Linda Beekman first heard about war in the once cosmopolitan
streets of Sarajevo. A year later, this quiet single mother and housecleaner actually lived
two months in the city under siege, a witness for peace who would return nine more times
over the next five years. She founded a non-profit project, The Sarajevo Project, which
was eventually adopted by the St.Petersburg Friends (Quaker) Meeting and supported
by many groups and individuals throughout the United States, including Yoko Ono.
During the siege, more than 10,615 Sarajevans, including 1,061 children, died from
snipers bullets or exploding shells. By the end of the war, 200,000 Bosnians were
dead and two million displaced or refugees.
Linda wrote War Cake to document the daily life of the people she met in Sarajevo
during and her efforts to help them. War Cake is an incredible, personal story of
the changes the war caused in Beekman's life and the lives of the friends she made
in Sarajevo. Through her Sarajevo Project, Beekman began her efforts by supplying
war-ravaged schoolchildren with lively arts supplies such as sheet music, ballet
and tap shoes. Her many visits to the city came to bring hope to city dwellers
that the West had not forgotten the besieged community.
According to Michael DeToro, Esq., U.S. State Department Human Rights and Democratization
officer in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1996-2001, Linda's hard-won experience in Bosnia proves
one person can make a difference both during the war by breaking through the siege of
Sarajevo to deliver assistance, and after the peace was won by remaining engaged so that
friends made were never forgotten.
Linda has continued to serve as a U.S. State Department volunteer for elections in Kosovo,
Georgia, and just recently returned from Bosnia.
She will have books available for signing, or you can order from the website,
http://www.warcake.com.
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