Topic: Interregional exchanges between North, South, East and West

Introduction

Since the beginning on the former battlefields of Esnes, near Verdun, in France in 1920, international voluntary service has been characterised essentially by two components: an international group (or an individual from another country) work within the frame of a given locally defined project. These two elements are the key to the objectives of such projects: to foster a process that affects the personal development of the volunteers involved on the one side and to contribute to the development of a local reality on the other. Voluntary service projects vary very much as to which of the components is given more weight. No matter which focus the international project has, it bears the potential for intercultural learning, a feeling of knowledge about, empathy with and solidarity between the volunteer/s and the local population as well as a concrete contribution to the work project itself. If the countries of origin of the volunteers among themselves or with the local population are very different from the country where the project takes place, it also bears a number of additional obstacles on the way to reach its set objectives.

The topic will be discussed under three different angles:

Questions for volunteers and organisations:

• The philosophy of voluntary service between different regions in the world

Questions for organisations:

• The partnership with organisations all over the world and the connections with them (networks)
• The partnership with institutional partners (UNV, EU, Council of Europe and others)

We would like to confront you with some provocative statements and ask you to react. The statements do not necessarily reflect the opinion of CCIVS - they represent a collection of opinions that we have encountered on different occasions and that we would like to present in order to heat the discussion. In some cases we even exaggerated the positions on purpose to create a discussion.

Please refer to the methodologies suggested for a fruitful and creative discussion.

We are aware that some of the issues ask for some previous knowledge on the issue. We have therefore subdivided the issues in statements to be discussed by volunteers in a project (questions about Philosophy) and statements to be discussed by the activists, board members and staff of the organisations.

Questions for Volunteers and Organisations

Philosophy

Projects are based on the concept of local action to respond to global needs (act locally - think globally) as well as global action to respond to local needs. Issues that need a global response are for example the question of debt relief or ecological disasters. This one-world-approach fosters a sense of solidarity and empathy among participants and with the local population, it leads to an intercultural exchange. International exchange in general is based on the principle of reciprocity (the same amount of people having a chance to visit the other country. The objective of voluntary service is not to give unilateral aid, but to facilitate an exchange and transfer of knowledge, experience and expertise in both directions while working on a work project that is useful for the local community.

Do you think the following statements are true or false? Please discuss, using the suggestions for the methodology:

• Local volunteers can respond much better to the needs of the local people, they know their needs and the language. International non-specialised volunteers can only intervene in situations where their action is not seriously needed. In cases of real need they are more in the way than helpful and the money to host and feed them would better be given to local organsiations directly.
• Reciprocity is but a dream especially for the South North dimension: participants from the South will never be able to come to the North in the same numbers as vice-versa, because of immigration and security preoccupations of Northern governments. Should they really? A stay in the North will only create envies and make them wish to stay while their brains are needed in their countries of origin.
• Volunteers from the North have more to give to the local population in the South in terms of valuable knowledge and expertise, than volunteers from the South coming North.
• Short term volunteer projects reinforce stereotypes more than they clarify them. The culture of the participants is reduced to kitchen, traditional clothes and music to be shared in a few weeks. Camp leaders are not adequately trained to bring out any additional dimension of intercultural learning or clarification of cultural misunderstandings.
• Voluntary service is not the right response for the solution of global issues, they have to be solved on a political level. Voluntary service can just help to alleviate a symptom but never the cause of a problem.
• The need to meet people from other countries to avoid future conflicts which was at the core of the movement 80 years ago is today obsolete. People meet anyway and know much more about the rest of the world through the media and tourism as well as through the multicultural communities in their own countries.
• The young people in a camp are on the same wavelength, because they are young, speak the same language and are in a holiday mood. Even if they find new friends from other countries in the project this doesn't render them more open and tolerant for other cultures in general.

Questions For Organisations

Partnership with other organisations (networking)

Networks can be envisaged in different ways: networks between organisations of the same region, networks between like-minded organisations (working in the same thematical areas) or support networks between organisations of various regions in order to complement each others special needs. Networks generally safeguard the specific identity of each of its member organisations (like in the case of the Alliance). International organisations like SCI, YAP and ICYE are existing examples of closely nit networks sharing a number of responsibilities and subscribing to a larger common identity. Some international organisations themselves are members of larger networks (like CCIVS or AVSO).

A network generally aims at facilitating the activities of its members in various ways and allows them to speak with one voice with third partners like funding agencies or institutions. Networks can also represent ways of re-distributing resources among partners suffering from unequal exchange opportunities: as a logical consequence of the declared spirit of solidarity and believing in reciprocity, more advantaged organisations contribute to solidarity fund schemes. extra fees, addressing global issues) geographic networks to facilitate, thematic network for quality (easier through communication)

• Real partnership presupposes also a redistribution of resources: what do you think of the following suggestions to re-organise the income generation of voluntary service organisations:
• Rather than only paying small amounts on a voluntary basis into solidarity funds, a system of automatic transfer of a certain percentage of the amount received from outgoing volunteers should be re-distributed to host organisations of countries with very few outgoing volunteers.
• In the ideal case, outgoing volunteers of the world should pay their fees to a co-ordinating organisation who would re-distribute the money evenly to the host organisations.
• The sending organisation should collect a higher inscription fee before the departure of the volunteer and transfer the appropriate amount to the partner in the South.
• The fee system should be turned from the head to its feet: volunteers should pay an inscription fee to their host organisation who bears the costs for their stay. The sending and administrative costs would then have to be covered by the amount of money paid by the incoming volunteers.
• Organisations often want to create a network for the sake of a network: Geographical (regional) co-ordination has lost its sense through the easier way of global communication through internet. A regional network without concrete activities will just turn into an empty shell administrating itself. We should start thinking in terms of thematical and global networks, organising projects on a common theme with partners around the globe.

Partnership with outside institutions

Voluntary Service organisations working between different regions don't operate in a vacuum, links exist with intergovernmental agencies, other international organisations and the private sector. The opinions about which links are useful and which aren't are often divided.

• Partnership with outside institutions means defining donors and beneficiaries: it is the role of NGO's to come up with creative ideas for projects and the role of the donors to pay for them. They should not interfere with the content of the project.
• Only if effective partnership is established with other agencies working towards sustainable development can we be truly effective. A little local initiative will always respond to needs in an arbitrary way without a lasting effect.
• NGO's need to take the media more serious as a partner to diffuse the knowledge about the movement. Voluntary service organisations are generally very bad in PR.
• NGO's have to acknowledge the private sector as a major player of civil society: they are not the bad guys but contribute towards the same goals (inclusion, capacity building, training, intercultural learning?) Partnerships and sponsorships need therefore to be established.

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