CONFERENCE ON OFFERING HELP TO PEOPLE WITH TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE BEGINS IN ZAGREB

BEGINS IN ZAGREB ZAGREB, July 13 (Hina) - A three-day international conference on education on offering help in convalescence from traumas began in Zagreb on Sunday. It has been organised by Zagreb's Society for Psychological Help (DPP) and a U.S organisation called Catholic Relief Services (CRS), and financially backed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. Opening the conference, U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, said that in recent years the U.S. Administration had financed programmes for training teachers, social workers, sociologists and others to help people to convalesce from war traumas. Ambassador Galbraith said that lectures learnt through such programmes, which would be exchanged during the conference, can be applied in all war-stricken areas in the future. Croatian Ambassador to the United States, Miomir Zuzul, sent a letter to conference participants wishing them a success in exchange of experience and in work. He wrote that the conference was being held in the right time when war wounds had not been still healed but when thought were directed toward the future. The aim of the Zagreb gathering is to critically review everything that international organisations' workers have learnt in recent years carrying out different training programmes and projects for psycho- social help. At the beginning of the event Dr. Daniel L. Creson held a lecture on what they learned and what they failed to learn in this field. The gathering was addressed by Charles Aanenson on behalf of USAID, by David Holdrige on behalf of CRS, and by Blanka Zic on behalf of the Croatian labour and social welfare ministry. (hina) mš 141009 MET jul 97