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In 1996, the post war reconstruction was in full swing.
Most of the participants of DESA's workshops had returned to
their homes. Their departure spelled the end of the
workshops, which closed, one by one. DESA now had to adapt
its programme to the new reality and the new needs of the
local population, which was still struggling with the
consequences and devastation of war. At the begining of the
year DESA therefore introduced a new enlarged series of
educational programmes:
- language courses included German and English at first
and later Italian
- practical crafts course included sewing, weaving, machine
knitting
- workshops on various hobbies and special techniques
like Christmas and Easter decorations.
1996 : The Silk Project
 Through
its work with displaced women from the Konavle region, DESA
had became aware of the great importance
that national costumes had for the emotional and cultural identity of the
local people.
Every single family in this area traditionally possessed
a treasure chest full of precious embroidered garments.
Most families had lost their treasures in the war,
when their homes were plundered or burnt down. As many of
the women desperately searched for a supply of natural silk,
in order to start working on new costumes, DESA's activists
came to the idea of restoring the centuries' old tradition
of silk worm breeding, which had been lost in the fifty
years of communist rule and its system of values. In the
spring of '93 DESA had drafted the project for the revival of
silk production and had started searching for a supply for silk
worms. Eventually, in 1996, through the network of DESA's
friends and sponsors, the Serica Association of Cevennes,
France, came up with a donation of silk worm eggs, which
were distibuted to interested families in the Konavle
region.  
The year 1996 was thus marked by the Revival
of Sericulture project. DESA managed
to import about 1000 dwarf mulberry trees ("Kokuso")
with the help of Croatian TV and the producers of "The
Wheel of Fortune" quiz show. With the help of the agronomy
expert from Croatian Department for Agriculture DESA has
planted Kokuso on two farms; one in Mocici, a village in
Konavle, and another in Majkovi village in the Primorje
area, north-west of Dubrovnik. .
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