Spotlight

When I looked for some printed SCI materials from the 1980s, I randomly encountered these old leaflets issued by the International Secretariat of SCI, explaining SCI’s Origins & Aims, how SCI works (completely unsurprising is the list of activities, and their order of appearance: Workcamps, Local Groups, Educational Activities, Long Term Projects), and listing the…

I found this poster only recently, when I was looking for material on the solidarity campaign with SWAPO and Namibia which had been coordinated by SEED. The abbreviation stands for Solidarity Exchanges Education Development – SCI’s former North South commission based at the then European Secretariat in Antwerpen. It was a veteran who had been…

In one of the many boxes I got from the IS two years ago, I found this sober sheet of paper in DIN A3 format, containing a diagram that shows all relevant international bodies of SCI in handdrawn rectangles and their relations in various lines, also drawn by hand.

The first Wednesday in September every year is the moment when volunteers gather at the SCI Switzerland office in Bern for packing the freshly printed small booklets called ‘Agenda’ (pocket calendars, or diaries, or planners, indeed) which are then mailed to all members of the Swiss branch as well as to some subscribers who live…

“If the number of displaced people in the world is swelling as they are forced to run from civil war, oppression or plain poverty, the response should not be to reinforce the walls of the rich-world fortress.”This sounds like a statement to the recent so-called “refugee crisis” in Europe. In fact, it is a quote…

First discussions on how SCI should celebrate the centenary of the first-ever international voluntary peace service near Verdun in 1920 have just started – and the second edition of the probably one and only monograph on the SCI movement’s history is not less than half a century old.The 167-pages paperback written by Hélène Monastier (parts…

The document I am presenting in this text is actually just a copy: I had donated the original to the recently opened Museum Friedland (www.museum-friedland.de) which is documenting the history of the transit camp for refugees and other migrants near the former border between West and East Germany. And when I visited the museum at…

Belgian French-speakers say souper whereas the French prefer dîner. In Minsk, the capital of “Belorussia”, a restaurant called “Jubileinaja” close to the Metro station Nemiga is recommended, however with no comments. A train ticket from Bonn to Köln costs 7.80 DM, whereas a big meal in Rome may easily cost 24,000 Lire. In Budapest, “it…

As the ICM in Sri Lanka is approaching, it should be reminded that SCI activities in that country had started well over 55 years ago. The nice booklet the branch had issued for its 50th Anniversary in 2010 reminds, at the same time, of the then 90th Anniversary of International SCI activities.

The diary, or pocket calendar, issued by SCI Switzerland since 1953 is pretty famous among SCI folks all over the world. Less people are aware that also the Nepalese SCI branch once issued a booklet called Diary with Directory 2002 – celebrating the International Volunteers’ Year of 2001.