Indira Kajosevic 

Co-director and Project Coordinator of the Reconciliation and Culture Cooperative Network, Inc., New York

Interviewed by Julian Portilla, 2003

This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).

Q: In your work at RACOON what techniques have you found that were most useful to accomplish the goals of your work?

A: It's interesting, but when one is having a dialogue, just the simple conflict resolution techniques as in talking about the actual conflict, really does help.

...

It does work really well for people who are going through a particular experience. I hate to say it, less to say with the knowledge of language but more about how they really where is the stage of their trauma also helps. Understand that their individual trauma is seen as a part of the social trauma, which is not really the same. Very often, it becomes very individual, very personal; this is one of the challenges that get addressed in having a dialogue.

Q: So you're saying to distinguish from individual trauma versus trauma that someone would associate would the trauma of their people is an important step in the process?

A: Yes. I think that in the early days of dialogues, there was a lot need for my mother... my father... and that becomes my people... or the way that I have experienced as a part of my people. It's a different step. If the social trauma is not addressed, it stays unresolved, and some people choose to do it forever, but I think that having dialogues is really good technique for now, in my experience.