1993: First steps and the development of handicraft workshops

DESA's initial program was a compassionate response to the situation in which Dubrovnik found itself in 1992: a city crowded with refugees and displaced persons in an environment largely devastated by the war. In that scenario of general suffering, DESA founders chose to offer help to refugee women who were wandering around aimlessly in a traumatized state, with nothing to do but queue up for humanitarian aid. At that moment in time it was imperative to identify some kind of activity which could keep the women busy and make them feel more useful. The solution was found in the form of handicraft workshops.

A pair of old scissors and piles of old clothes were all that the workshop could offer to its participants, who were looking primarily for company and for someone to talk to.
A total of seven workshops were opened in the first year. In addition to the two workshops in Dubrovnik and two in Cavtat, there were one each in Mlini, Korcula and Orebic, all of them located in hotels housing refugees. By the autumn of '93, over 350 women were working in these workshops.

The workshops in Cavtat and Mlini concentrated on the revival of traditional embroidery of the Konavle region; in Dubrovnik the Hotel Libertas workshop offered weaving, crocheting and knitting, and the Hotel Palace workshop specialized in sewing and patchwork. The workshops in Orebic concentrated on stocking and sweater knitting and the one in Korcula on sewing and medicinal herb collecting.

From the very beginning, DESA's program has helped women face their harsh reality and take an active part in the restoration of their shattered lives. DESA's workshops offered a place where women could not only socialize, but also learn from each other and develop their creativity in friendly surroundings.

DESA's appeals to the outside world brought results, and help started trickling in the form of clothes, family aid parcels and special medicine for diabetics. DESA's activities gradually were noticed by institutional and individual donors abroad who started providing equipment and materials for the workshops:

• loom and weaving material arrived from the Council of the Europe Secretariat members,
• sewing machines and a shipment of cloth from the French City of Roueil Malmaison,
• more sewing machines and knitting wool from Zonta International of Germany.

The first financial aid came from the German organization Evangelische Frauenarbeit, an organization which has continued helping DESA throughout the years to the present date, and from the French organization Solidarité Femmes, which became DESA's first promoter and an important fund-raiser at the European Union. It was also responsible for the financial contribution from the European parliamentary association Femmes d'Europe.

With the help of its international supporters, DESA organized selling exhibitions of the handicrafts produced in its various workshops: the first Christmas exhibitions were held in Paris (with the assistance of Solidarité Femmes), and in Bruxelles, (organized by The General Secretariat of the Council of Europe), while in Dubrovnik it was organized by DESA activists.