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Europe

Salzburg Seminar on Global Health Recommendations for WHO

WFMH Senior Consultant Eugene B. Brody was an invited participant at a

“Salzburg Seminar Special Session” held from 8 to 12 July 2000 on “Critical

Issues in Global Health: Leadership Challenges in the 21st Century.” The

session held at the Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria, was convened

by C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General and director of the Office

of International Health. It was organized by the U.S. National Center for

Health Education of New York, headed by Clarence Pearson who, with his staff

and internationally experienced colleagues from the Academy for Educational

Development in Washington, D.C., served as the faculty secretariat. The

seminar was funded by the W.K. Kellog Foundation with additional support

from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Seminar participants examined the context for “transformational leadership

to influence global health,” discussed the requirements for future leaders

and methods of training them, and produced recommendations to help WHO

achieve its goals and objectives for global health. The bulk of the

participants were academicians in the fields of medicine, epidemiology,

nutrition, population, public health, and health policy.

Dr. Brody was the only mental health specialist at the seminar. WHO was

represented by several past and current officers, including Derek Yach,

Executive Director in charge of the departments concerned with

non-communicable diseases and mental health. Dr. Yach gave one of the

keynote addresses, representing WHO Director General Brundtland. Keynote

messages were also delivered by Dr. Koop and by political scientist Harlan

Cleveland, former Marshall Plan administrator after World War II, U.S.

Undersecretary of State, U.S. Ambassador to NATO and holder of many

distinctions including the U.S. Medal of Freedom. Among other notable

participants were the Director of the Public Health Research Institute in

Moscow, Russian Federation; the Chairman of the Technical Committee for

Health Reform of Lebanon; the Chairman of the Global Forum for Health

Research based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and

the former Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research in New

Delhi.

SIND in Kosovo

SIND, the Danish Mental Health Association, recently received a one-year

grant to help the mentally ill in Kosovo by developing day centers and other

alternatives to psychiatric care in hospitals. Kosovo, formerly a region of

Yugoslavia, suffered intensely during the civil war. It has 2.2 million

inhabitants, most of them Muslims. An administrator for the SIND project,

Karen Reiff, moved to the capital city, Pristina, at mid-year. She was

followed soon after by a Danish social worker, Linda Bregendorf, who will

stay for at least six months.

Between 1994 and 1998 SIND supported another initiative in the region in

cooperation with the Hamlet Trust, London, to establish a day center for the

mentally ill in Tirana, Albania. The center continues to operate

successfully and its director, Adriatik Bicaku, has been a valuable source

of advice for the new project. He will visit Pristina at least monthly to

consult with the Danish workers.

A delegation from SIND led by its President, Bente Djorup, went to Pristina

on 4-8 September. It included Executive Director Kim Christensen; Knud

Jensen, chair of the SIND International Committee (and a WFMH Board member);

and the adviser for developing countries, Hans Wulffsberg.

In addition to planning the development of their project they also visited

HANDIKOS, an organization which works with handicapped people but lacks

experience in helping the mentally ill. They visited an institution for the

mentally handicapped supported by the Norwegian Red Cross, STIMJE, and

thought it was being run along very old-fashioned principles. On their

return to Denmark they recommended to the Norwegian Red Cross that it should

support collectives for the mentally handicapped instead. SIND

representatives will return to Pristina in December for another review of

their team’s work.

WHO is active in helping to build up a mental health system for Kosovo, with

plans which generally follow the structure of the community psychiatry

system in Trieste. While in Pristina the Danish delegation attended a

seminar on mental health legislation arranged by WHO.

Meetings

Netherlands

The annual meeting of Mental Health Europe-Sante Mentale Europe will be held

in conjunction with “European Conference on Mental Health 2001 – Visibly

Improved, Improved Visibility” in Rotterdam on 7-9 March 2001. This

conference is being organized by GGZ Nederland and the Trimbos Institute.

For information, contact Maurice Galla, European Project Manager at the

Trimbos Institute by email at [email protected]

Israel

Following the first International Conference on Violence and Adolescence in

Jerusalem in November 1999, a second Conference on the same theme will be

held there on 17-19 July 2001. The main theme is “Prevention of Violence in

Adolescence.” The meeting is being organized by the WFMH Committee on

Adolescents chaired by Emanuel Chigier. For information, contact: ISAS

International Seminars, POB 574, Jerusalem 91004, Israel. Tel: 972 2 652

0574. Fax: 972 2 652 0558. Email: [email protected]