Open Society Foundation – East East Program

9th International Working Meeting

Overcoming Violence: Persons, Families, Societies

III Integration and Reconciliation

Dubrovnik, Croatia
Hotel Bellevue, June 1 – 4, 2000

Systems in Transition
was founded in 1992 to examine the interface between personal psychological meanings and the social process of transition, particularly within the former East Bloc and the European Union. Since these processes were so sudden and engulfing, a methodology combining sharing points of view and learning from joint experience was developed. At the same time, an international group was formed, so that shared history and mutual respect provide a basis for dealing with potentially threatening topics from change to violence.
The Relevance of Reconciliation
The crucial relevance of reconciliation in personal and international dimensions will be the focus of this year's 9th International Working Meeting of Systems in Transition, to be held in Dubrovnik from May 31 to June 4th. Forty to fifty mental-health professionals, and social scientists from at least 16 countries, mostly in central and eastern Europe, but also including Germany, Portugal, Israel, Denmark and the U.S.A. will meet with the support of the Open Society Foundation and Forum Europe to develop a common understanding of why indeed reconciliation is to be considered in a world where the justifications for violence - social justice, ethnicity, or the neglect and abuse that all too often form the reality of childhood - can seem so overwhelmingly convincing.
Overcoming Violence: Persons, Families, Societies
This topic has developed naturally as the culmination of the group's three year focus on overcoming violence in persons, families and societies. In 1998, S.i.T. had its first 'meeting with violence', including the Holocaust and the wars in former Yugoslavia, in Düsseldorf. The 1999 meeting (dealing with issues of poverty and resilience), had to be moved from Macedonia to Hungary, due to the war which had once again engulfed the region, so that the group had a chance to practice what it means to 'speak with the other side' in war-time. Thus our own experience has drawn us to the topic of reconciliation, while our reading has taught us that a willingness and indeed an ability to reconcile may be the base-line allowing political and indeed factual survival of human society on our planet.
Welcome to SIT 2000
This year's meeting will feature a number of workshops aimed at exploring the meaning of reconciliation for overcoming violence from different perspectives, such as: therapeutic, social and community development, international collaboration and integration processes. Valuable as each of these contributions will be, we look forward to the joint insights that have always been a product of these international meetings, and wish you a productive time. We invite your further inquiries via:

Jadranka Mimica Susan Scharwiess
Chairman, Organizing Committee Communication Center
Buniceva 14 Windscheidstr. 12
HR-10000 Zagreb D-10627 Berlin
Tel. + fax: +385-1-6184-389 Tel. + fax: +49-30-323 82 87
eMail: jadranka.mimica@zg.tel.hr eMail: Susansch10@aol.com