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COALITION FOR WORK WITH PSYCHOTRAUMA AND PEACE office@cwwpp.org, tel. +385-32-450991, fax +385-32-441975; in Croatia: M. Drzica 12, 32000 Vukovar; in The Netherlands: Ds. S. Tjadenstraat C81, 9663 RD Nieuwe Pekela © 2005 Coalition for Work With Psychotrauma and Peace |
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The Coalition for Work
with Psychotrauma and Peace Previous Newsletters
30 June, 2008
To read a version of this Update in Microsoft Word, click here.
STUDYING WITH THE CWWPP: PLACES OPEN FOR FALL 2008 The CWWPP has announced its program for study for 2008. This year we offer an intensive course which will last for four weeks and an optional project period, which will last for another month. If an applicant decides to stay the whole program, there will be additional two week vacation between the intensive course and the project period. The Introductory Course in Post-Conflict Studies will be given from November to December, 2008, or January 2009, depending on the option you choose. There is also the possibility of assistance for Masters and Doctoral students. More information is available at http://www.cwwpp.org/Study.htm. You may also write to us at institute@cwwpp.org. The CWWPP is working towards developing of online educational programs for post-conflict areas. The program will include development of: 1) the “Core Course” for non-professionals to give them the basic skills and knowledge to be able to carry out work in their own areas at a high level of competence; and in later stages, 2) program leading to a BA and an MA in post-conflict studies that will combine the theoretical and practical aspects of work in such areas. Our aim is to provide relatively simple access to the degree course on the one hand and quality on the other. Key personnel responsible for the program are our Educational Coordinator, Ms. Sandra Maric, Head of Mission, Dr. Charles David Tauber, and Deputy Head of Mission, Mr. Sinisa Stanivuk. The CWWPP is creating a network of Subject Matter Experts with the professors and Ph.D. students from abroad who will be involved in the developing of the program. Dr. Dennis Mills from Olympia, Washington, USA, is our key advisor. Dr. Mills visited us in June and October 2007. Visit our website for further updates on educational programs. If you have an MA or a PhD and are interested in volunteering with us as a Subject Matter Expert please write to us at institute@cwwpp.org. Although having an excellent geo-strategic position in the region and a huge potential in natural resources, due to various events that happened during past two decades, Vukovar-Srijem County remains one of the economically weakest counties in Croatia. Although efforts have been made to repair the physical damage to property and infrastructure, the impact of the war continues to impinge on all aspects of VSC’s social and economic life. This low economic activity in eastern Croatia creates a base for continuance of the crisis within society in post-war period. Mental and physical health in the region is not improving. Lack of competent and complete medical care leads to increased both psychological and physical problems. Drug treatment of patients is still the most common way of dealing with the problems. War traumas are not adequately treated and we see the transmission of traumas as one of the biggest obstacles to health and reconciliation. The issues such as suicides, domestic violence, alcoholism, high unemployment rates and low efforts aimed at reconciliation are still key issues to be dealt with. Further, funding for democratization continues to diminish. Thus, there are still many efforts ahead of us in order to make the region fit for integration into the European Union. We would also like to point that the donors are leaving this area and it is very difficult for organizations such as ours to find grants for variety of projects addressing the issues mentioned above. Organizations and potential funders for this region that are interested in working on these issues should contact us at office@cwwpp.org. InterChange, Toronto, and the CWWPP, Vukovar, continue to work as partner organizations in developing programs in education and research on a multi-centric basis. An InterChange delegation that consisted of Dr. Anne Goodman, Dr. Edith Klein, and Zora Ognjenovic visited our headquarters in the spring of 2007. We discussed the structure of InterChange and possible joint programs, as well as general strategies of grassroots peacebuilding. InterChange held its first symposium in Rwanda in November 2007. The Proceedings from the Symposium have been posted on the InterChange website at http://www.interchange4peace.org/pdf/2007SymposiumProceedings.pdf. The CWWPP and the InterChange continue cooperation. During their stay with CWWPP, we were visited by Dr. Peter Huncik, psychiatrist, who is head of the Forum Minority Research Institute in Samorin, Slovakia and an acclaimed conflict resolution specialist. In July, 2007, we visited Dr. Huncik in Slovakia. CWWPP CONTINUES THE WORK ON HISTORY OF JEWS OF THE VUKOVAR REGION – FURTHER FUNDING NEEDED The project on history of Jews of the Vukovar region was funded through a grant from the Rothschild Foundation of London in 2005/2006. After the end of the grant period, the CWWPP continued its work on the project through its own funding. We have recently finished photographing records from the State Archives of Osijek. After this stage, the CWWPP will not be able to continue with further research unless additional funding is secured. If additional funding secured, the next step in the research will include collection of relevant information in Archives of Sremska Mitrovica, Subotica, Belgrade and Zagreb. We welcome further funding for the project. We also welcome graduate students with a knowledge of the field as well as knowledge of at least Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian, German, English and perhaps Hebrew to assist us in continuing the project. Please write to institute@cwwpp.org if you are interested. The MATRA project, funded by the Dutch Embassy of Zagreb, is finished. The aim of the project was to increase the general knowledge about psychotrauma in society and work on capacity building among youth who will gain knowledge, skills and attitudes in order to do peer-counseling in their communities. The project educated young people in communications, psychological trauma, civil society and non-violent conflict transformation. The project did not finish in the timeframe given in the proposal. Thus, the CWWPP donated its own funds to finish the project. The number of clients is increasing. We now have about 20 individual clients. We have 5 new groups. There is one group in Osijek, one group in Vinkovci, and three groups in Vukovar. These groups educate people with varying backgrounds in communication, psychology, particularly psychological trauma, civil society, non-violent conflict transformation and human rights. The groups are given for a period of 2 hours per week. The total length of the program is flexible and depends on the needs and desires of the participants. Further, we have written a series of brochures on common problems with which we work. The topics of the brochures included: Depression, The group for the families of Schizophrenics, Schizophrenia, Domestic Violence, Anger Control, Suicide, Dependency on Prescription and Non-Prescription Drugs, Alcoholism, PTSD, Invalids, Former Soldiers, The Core Educational Group, etc. These brochures were distributed in strategic locations in Vukovar and other towns in Vukovar-Sirmium and Osijek-Baranja Counties. One of the results of these publications was the increase in clients. They will be published in Documents Section of the CWWPP website in English and Croatian. In March, 2007, Charles David Tauber completed the first level of EMDR training with Roger Solomon of the EMDR group in San Francisco, together with local trainers from Belgrade. He is one of the few EMDR practitioners in the region. The CWWPP organized an introductory course in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). The aim of this project was to give the basic knowledge of NLP to a group diverse in age and background in Vukovar. The basic idea of the project was: “How to implement NLP” in your daily life and how to use NLP to improve communication. The course was given by Sytse Tjallingii of Zwolle, The Netherlands from 15-19 October, 2007 in Vukovar, Croatia at CWWPP Headquarters. There were 15 participants to the course. The workshop was held by Hector Aristizabal from 3-5 April, 2008 in Vukovar. Hector Aristizabal holds an MA degree in Psychology from Colombia and a degree as a Marriage Family Therapist from Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena. He is also a theater director and actor, and a practitioner of the techniques known as Theater of the Oppressed, developed by the Brazilian Augusto Boal. The basic idea of the workshop was to learn about different techniques of sociodrama in order to stimulate personal and social transformation. Most participants of the workshop were young people. There were 37 participants. The participants were highly satisfied with the workshop and they expressed interest in future similar workshops. MARTIN LUTHER KING ANNIVERSARY The CWWPP commemorated 40 years of assassination of Martin Luther King’s on April 4, 2008. Our wish was to celebrate this date as a symbol of non-violent civil resistance and to remind the public that we are witnesses of segregation in the communities in which we live and work. The commemoration ceremony was held in the newly restored house of the famous Croatian Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Lavoslav Ruzicka. FINISH AMBASSADOR, ANN-MARIE NYROOS, VISITS VUKOVAR Finish Ambassador Ann-Marie Nyroos visited the CWWPP and Vukovar on May 6, 2008. We discussed possible cooperation between CWWPP and the Embassy of Finland Zagreb. On the request of the Finish Ambassador the CWWPP hosted a meeting where various NGOs from Vukovar and Osijek presented their work. We also discussed a possibility of developing of joint programs with regard to domestic violence issues. CWWPP HIRES A DEPUTY HEAD OF MISSION The CWWPP has hired a Deputy Head of Mission, Mr. Sinisa Stanivuk, who is responsible for management and education. Mr. Stanivuk is in the last stages of obtaining his BSc in Politics and International Relations from the London School of Economics. Further, Ms. Alenka Mirkovic-Nadj is working with us as a volunteer, currently translating a book for us as well as working on a paper on economics and reconciliation. A group of students from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, visited Vukovar and CWWPP Headquarters in July, 2007. The group was given a tour of the city and the region and discussed issues related to the conflict and post-conflict periods here as well as the Holocaust in Croatia. One member of the group, a Ph.D. student Stephan Dietrich, returned in September 2007, for further study. A group of Hungarian students visited CWWPP Headquarters in July 2007. They were interested in the economics of the region. Several individual student visits occurred in April and May 2008. A German student, Kathleen Franz, of University of Giessen was interested in exploring the German ethnic minority in Vukovar as well as other ethnic minorities. Postdoctoral student, Ana Kosic, from the University of Kingston upon Thames came to explore about the issues of youth in the region. An American student, Jessica Henschel, from the University of Maryland was investigating the influence of the pre-accession process for the European Union on Croatian health care. REPRESENTATIVE OF THE QUAKER COUNCIL FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS (QCEA) VISITS VUKOVAR AND OSIJEK Mr. Calum Shaw, project assistant for the Balkans for QCEA, Brussels, visited Vukovar and Osijek in June, 2008 as part of a fact-finding tour of the Western Balkans. His program in this region was arranged by the CWWPP. The QCEA is the European Quaker representation to the European Union. A report will be produced later in 2008 or early in 2009. A representative of the CWWPP attended the Queen’s Birthday celebration organized by the Royal Netherlands Embassy Zagreb on April 24, 2008, and Israeli Independence Day which was celebrated at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb on May 11, 2008. HELP THE CWWPP TO EXPAND ITS WORK Funding for our basic operating costs for 2008 has been secured by our generous donor from the USA who wishes to remain anonymous. The CWWPP would like to carry out many more projects than those for which we receive funding. We believe such project would extremely benefit the community we work in. Our Annual Report for 2007 and Strategic Plan for 2008 will soon be available on the website. To see how to contribute to the CWWPP, see http://www.cwwpp.org/Support.htm. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR FINANCIAL AND MORAL SUPPORT Charles David Tauber, M.D. Head of Mission and the Staff of the CWWPP
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