Spotlight

During more than two years, SCI had provided me with kitchen wall decoration, in addition to the usual SCI pocket diary issued by my own branch each year . The first one was edited by the International Secretariat. Sasha Laziuk, an LTV from Belarus who had been working there, signed the intro together with Finance…

From the International Secretariat, I recently received its latest Annual Report. When I filed it to the Archives, I took the opportunity to look into older IS Annual Reports. I noticed that until the early 1970s there were no such documents – of course the IS regularly reported to ICM and IEC, but the Archives…

Even though a German branch of SCI has been founded only after World War II, with the help of British conscientious objectors from IVSP following the first Friedland refugee camp project (see my article from April 2016), SCI activities in Germany have started much earlier. Bertram Schröter, one of the oldest veterans of the movement…

One more report from a seminar on workcamp organisation and leadership from the deep 1980s. The seminar took place in a nice place outside Helsinki and it was called The Finland Seminar. Finland was not just a country among others in Europe, it was also an in-between space back then, in between the East and…

This is somehow typically 1980s: A lot of critical reflection mixed with funny cartoons, a sloppy layout compared to 21st century standards, and above all a very grassroots approach behind it. The readers are warned as early as in the preface on page 2 that this report is quite boring, as it was mainly written…

“The evolution of SCI over the last forty years can be compared to the growth of a plant. The movement has spread from country to country and from continent to continent, taking root here and there. SCI has made various experiments in the field of voluntary work thanks to the energy and the generosity of…

Not long ago, I received a request from a European SCI branch, asking me for the “first international constitution (1920)”.As everyone is aware that 1920 has been the year in which it all started (therefore we will soon be able to celebrate 2020!) the request somehow seems logical. But on the other hand, Pierre Ceresole…

This Guide for Camp Leaders, Hosts and Volunteers has been an indirect result of a seminar that took place in Stockholm in 1998 with participants from SCI branches and partners located around the Baltic Sea. It was subsequently produced by the Swedish branch IAL in co-operation with the Finnish branch KVT to try to raise…

2020, when the first one hundred years of SCI will be celebrated, is moving closer, so it is time to remember another anniversary event: In November 1990, SCI celebrated its 70th anniversary in Verdun, France – as we all know, the first international voluntary service had started in November 1920 to reconstruct the village of…

For this and the next issue of From the Archives I had placed two nice objects on the shelf next to my desk some time ago already – but then I learned about the death of a very old friend from the Swiss branch of SCI, Fridolin Trüb (see article Swiss SCI veteran and lifelong…