Blogger Highlight-Croatia, the War, and the Future

Thank you for all the great feedback on the Blogger Highlight series, I’ve enjoyed meeting each blogger and sharing their site with you. This week we highlight the blog Croatia, the War, and the Future. We have followed each other for several years and I have learned much from her. I’m not particularly interested in Croatian politics but her posts teach the history, and how Croatia has evolved.

Croatia, the War, and the Future

Ina Vukic – Croatia: people, politics, history, economy, transitioning from communism to democracy

Questions I ask Ina:

M.

I remember you saying you worked with Vietnam Veterans, can you share a paragraph about your work? 

I.

I guess Australia was not different to the USA when it came to Vietnam Veterans suffering PTSD and for many it became chronic and lifelong. I believe up to 30% of Vietnam Veterans suffered PTSD, some acute and relatively short term and for most it became chronic albeit in varying degrees of severity of symptoms between individuals.  As a Clinical Psychologist in Sydney Australia, I worked in the Mental Health Hospital system mainly concentrating on disorder diagnostics and behaviour therapy in people with disabilities including dual diagnosis with mental illness as one of the two and cognitive impairment as the other. Outside my normal working hours, I also maintained into the late 1990’s a private psychological service through which I offered therapy and support to several Vietnam Veterans who had chronic PTSD and needed long-term support in order to maintain employment and family relationships at a good level. The purpose of my work was to reduce symptoms of PTSD especially concentrating on spousal relationship, which is an aspect of normal life that often suffers the most in PTSD sufferers and their spouses. Being useful in life, being and staying meaningfully employed and managing family and personal relationships were the main focus points to living with PTSD despite the horrors seen and experienced on the war front that haunt sufferers for decades.   

M.

Are there other jobs you are extremely proud of?

I.

Paid jobs I am extremely proud of revolve around my roles as Manager and then CEO of disability services that focused on closing institutions in which people with disabilities lived and helping them move into normal houses in the community. This was achieved by early 1990’s in the state of New South Wales in Australia and I was so proud to have played a significant and instrumental role in this in Sydney. After that my job as CEO of government-funded disability services for more than two decades was to ensure that people with disabilities become a part of the normal community they live in, that human rights and anti-discrimination measures are in place and that access to everything a community life has to offer, with appropriate assistance, happens for them.   

The unpaid job I am extremely proud of over the many years, which I applied myself to in my free time, was political activism and lobbying foreign governments from Australia to help Croatian people achieve independence from communist Yugoslavia. My family was one of hundreds of thousands families that in late 1950’s and early 1960’s, as applicable to my family, felt hard communist oppression to the point of being denied work because one did not accept the communist party, and consequently had no alternative in life but to emigrate from Yugoslavia in search of freedom and living life without fear. Australia offered a safe haven and “the sky is the limit” if you put your mind to it sort of opportunities in life.  After in May 1991 almost 94% of voters in Croatia voted for independence at the referendum I became one of the most politically active women of Croatian origins in Australia (and Western-world-wide) with view to help Croatia achieve independence and win the was of aggression that was waged against her because people wanted independence from Yugoslavia and a rule of democracy, not communism, not socialism.  Besides these activities I engaged relentlessly in fundraising for humanitarian aid, particularly for the many refugees, displaced, and children who had lost one or both parents in the war. I was and still am very proud of the two Medals of Honour I had received in 1995 from the President of Croatia for my exceptional and significant contribution to the Homeland War and the creation of the democratic and independent state of Croatia. 

M.

 Do you have a favorite post to share?  

I.

https://inavukic.com/2013/09/11/croatian-hero-of-911-lt-anthony-jovic/

I guess the above post on 9/11 tragedy detail would be among my favourite posts because it holds within it the wonderful reality that people from all backgrounds and ethnic descents give their lives in efforts to save others no matter where they are or where they have grown up. And it this post it happens to be an American Croatian. 

I am also quite partial to this post as it demonstrates bravery for an “adopted” country that after immigration becomes the second homeland. 

https://inavukic.com/2013/11/11/war-veterans-in-u-s-a-of-croatian-descent/

One of my favorite post

Croatian Folklore Costume Culture in the Diaspora

I love seeing the national dress and culture of other countries. This post takes you there. 

Melinda

Looking for the Light