With war crimes trials underway in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the European arm of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma (www.dartcentre.org) is supporting BIRN with training, materials and expertise as part of a programme to shift journalistic culture in the region towards a more sophisticated and educated understanding of how psychological trauma impacts on post-conflict societies – and how journalists can be best supported in reporting the aftermath of war.
The training is being led by the Dart Centre’s European Director Mark Brayne, a former BBC and Reuters foreign correspondent and now a practising psychotherapist, and brings together eight of BIRN’s country directors, from Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Montenegro.
The Opatija workshop is the latest in a series of Dart Centre initiatives on trauma in the Balkans, including a seminar last month in Palic, Serbia (http://www.dartcenter.org/global/europe/reports/Palic_OSCE_Seminar.html) , with Serbian journalists covering the current war crimes trials in Belgrade.