{"id":7442,"date":"2016-10-05T09:30:40","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T13:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/?p=7442"},"modified":"2020-04-23T16:41:39","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T20:41:39","slug":"star-faculty-aid-in-sarajevo-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2016\/10\/star-faculty-aid-in-sarajevo-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"STAR staff, CJP alumni and faculty aid in Sarajevo conference"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"peace-10\"<\/a>
From left: Professor Barry Hart, Amela Puljek-Shank, MA ’04, former CJP faculty Dr. Nancy Good, STAR director Katie Mansfield, Dr. Al Fuertes, who has taught at Summer Peacebuilding Institute, helped plan and participate in an international conference in Sarajevo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

More than two decades after the war that tore apart\u00a0the former Yugoslavia, the scars remain. Memorials and ruins\u00a0stand as physical reminders of the conflict that ran for four\u00a0years in the mid-1990s; less visible are the emotional and\u00a0psychological wounds that many residents still bear.<\/p>\n

It is these latter scars that drew the attention of Katie\u00a0Mansfield<\/strong><\/a> and Barry Hart<\/strong><\/a> of Eastern Mennonite University\u2019s\u00a0(EMU) Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Mansfield,\u00a0director of the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience\u00a0(STAR)<\/a> program, and Hart, professor of trauma, identity and\u00a0conflict studies, helped to plan and participated in an international\u00a0conference on \u201cTrauma, Memory and Healing in the\u00a0Balkans and Beyond\u201d in July in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n

The conference, sponsored by the Transcultural Psychosocial\u00a0Educational Foundation (TPO), had two goals: developing an\u00a0\u201carchive of knowledge\u201d from the papers presented at the event,\u00a0and building a network of people who \u201cshare \u2018best practices\u2019\u00a0for psycho-social trauma recovery and the healing of memories,\u201d\u00a0according to the website.<\/p>\n

Mansfield says the goals were largely met, with \u201ca joint effort\u00a0of scholars, practitioners and activists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"peace-11\"<\/a>
Mansfield and Hart are pleased at STAR\/CJP involvement with graduates working in Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mansfield and Hart were on a panel that considered how to\u00a0integrate psycho-social responses to trauma into peacebuilding\u00a0work and shared about EMU\u2019s STAR program, which began\u00a0in 2001 to address the trauma of the September 11 events.\u00a0Hart also presented a paper titled \u201cMultidisciplinary and\u00a0Cross Sector Approaches to Building Peace after Complex and\u00a0Violent Conflicts: The Importance of Psychosocial Trauma and\u00a0Well-being in this Process.\u201d Mansfield facilitated several workshops\u00a0on the body\u2019s response to trauma and on using play as\u00a0a method for getting around \u201cstuck-ness.\u201d She also led a daily\u00a0period of breathing and meditation exercises.<\/p>\n

Beyond the formal presentations, they say the conference\u00a0included sobering moments, such as a visit to the memorial at\u00a0the Srebrenica genocide site, and heart-warming ones, including\u00a0the hospitality shown by a local women\u2019s group that works\u00a0together across ethnic boundaries.\u00a0Many issues remain for the region, including high unemployment\u00a0and other economic challenges, growing insulation\u00a0of ethnic groups, changing gender roles and differing perspectives\u00a0on the wartime years.<\/p>\n

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has a longstanding\u00a0presence in the Balkans, and EMU has several connections\u00a0there as well. Those include former seminary faculty members\u00a0N. Gerald<\/strong> and Sara Wenger Shenk<\/strong>, who served in the former\u00a0Yugoslavia with MCC, and Amela Puljek-Shank<\/strong><\/a> \u201900, MA \u201904, and Randy\u00a0Puljek-Shank<\/strong><\/a>, MA \u201999. Amela, a native Bosnian, is MCC\u00a0Area Director for Europe and the Middle East and was a keynote speaker at the conference. Since graduating from CJP, the Puljek-Shanks have been creating and facilitating trauma awareness and resilience learning forums throughout the Balkans.<\/p>\n

The conference \u201chighlighted the importance of being persistent in continuing to talk about the impact trauma has on\u00a0generations while also naming that we are not doomed forever\u00a0due to the traumatic experiences many generations have gone\u00a0through,\u201d she said. \u201cResiliency and recovery from trauma are\u00a0key terms that need to be in the forefront of our conversations.\u00a0Trauma brings many opportunities for growth and healing.\u00a0Thus, for us in MCC \u2026 supporting our partners across the\u00a0world in their work, learning how they worked on trauma\u00a0healing and recovery, and exchanging best practices helps all of\u00a0us build critical yeast that will eventually lean towards peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was the second conference held on the topic, and both\u00a0Mansfield and Hart hope the series continues. They praised\u00a0TPO program director Zilka Spahi\u0107 \u015ailjak<\/strong>, co-organizer of\u00a0the conference, as \u201ca really impressive and dynamic person\u201d\u00a0whose energy and vision were instrumental in bringing the\u00a0event together. The author of Shining Humanity \u2013 Life Stories\u00a0of Women Peacebuilders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, \u0160iljak\u00a0teaches at several universities and is currently doing research at\u00a0Stanford.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was the right conference as part of the next step,\u201d\u00a0Hart says. \u201cIt\u2019s a building process. I really trust that they\u2019ll take\u00a0this forward in a dynamic, meaningful way, and we want to be\u00a0as much a part of that as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to think how CJP may be involved in helping\u00a0to deepen those capacities that are already so powerfully there,\u201d\u00a0Mansfield adds.<\/p>\n

The collection of conference papers is expected to be available\u00a0in English by early 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  More than two decades after the war that tore apart\u00a0the former Yugoslavia, the scars remain. Memorials and ruins\u00a0stand as physical reminders of the conflict… Read more about STAR staff, CJP alumni and faculty aid in Sarajevo conference<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1073],"tags":[1594,622],"issues":[1425],"class_list":["post-7442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","tag-star-2","tag-star","issues-2016-17"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7442"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7780,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442\/revisions\/7780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7442"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=7442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}