Smajo Bešo OBE

Smajo studied architecture at Newcastle University and spent several years in professional practice, specialising in the design of schools, colleges and universities — the spaces where human potential is either cultivated or crushed. He returned to Newcastle University as a lecturer and then a researcher, exploring the relationship between the built environment, education and human identity, before moving into human geography: the study of how people find belonging and meaning, and what happens when those things are taken away.

He is currently completing a PhD at Newcastle University on the Bosnian diaspora in the North East of England, drawing on oral histories with Bosnian refugees, their descendants and the people who helped to resettle them.

In 2020 he founded the Bosnian Genocide Educational Trust, serving first as Chair and then as CEO, and building it into a nationally recognised organisation delivering survivor-led education across the UK. He established the We Are schools programme — the UK’s first survivor-led genocide education and storytelling programme for schools — sits on the National Advisory Board of Remembering Srebrenica, and works in an advisory capacity with charities and organisations across the UK, including City of Sanctuary.

For more than a decade he has spoken for government, the NHS, police forces, trade unions and universities across the UK, as well as in Parliament, the Cabinet Office and the House of Lords, and has featured in national and international media including the Daily Mirror and Metro. In 2023 he was honoured with an OBE by King Charles for his services to genocide and Holocaust education.