Professor to help Indonesia in disaster response

By Elizabeth Leffall

Criminology professor John Dussich left Friday morning for Japan to prepare for a weeklong visit to Indonesia, where he will train disaster response workers.

While in Japan, Dussich will attend a symposium on child abuse, gather training materials and learn basic Indonesian phrases.

“I am volunteering because first, there is the professional response. I’ve been trained to help,” Dussich said. “Second, because I’m human. The victims of the tsunami need the assistance of the world.”

On the recommendation of Arif Gosita, a victimology professor at the University of Indonesia, the Indonesian government asked Dussich to bring his experiences from Fresno State to Jakarta to help them deal with thousands of victims devastated by the natural disaster.

Dussich has worked with victims of trauma for more than 30 years and has taught for more than 20 years.

He is internationally known for his work in crisis intervention.

“I have assisted governments before,” he said. “After the war in Bosnia, the people I met were more than devastated.

“When trauma becomes more aggravated, many people give up completely,” he said.

In Jakarta, Dussich will train workers how to “provide hope in the midst of confusion” and to perform what he called “psychological triage,” effectively identifying and separating victims in dire need.

Aid workers will be taught how to use cultural awareness to reach victims of different languages, to provide direction through information, to establish resource centers that victims can reach, and to release feelings that would block their effectiveness.

Dussich said his team will be deployed into the major population centers of Indonesia in early February.

“Because trauma is something that is residual, I’m sure we’ll have work to do there for years to come,” Dussich said.