Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
October 2007
Servas and Involvement
As the keylist person who deals with enquiries on britain@servas.org I get quite a few emails requesting information every month. The following one I particularly liked as it so sums up what we are all about. - involvement. I'm currently a member of Couch Surfing and have so far enjoyed my experience. I have since been told about Servas and recently visited the web site. Servas seems much more organised and involved and as a result I am interested in joining to try it out There are quite a few organisations that deal with hosting and travelling, but as my correspondent points out, in Servas we are involved. And so I thought about it. Yes we are involved. Look at the activities that are going on. Hosting and travelling is a part of what we do but there is so much more besides. Some of our activities this year have been meetings around the world which have been reported here. eg: Youth and Family Week, England, the tri-country meeting in South America, The Africa meeting to come, get togethers going on around the world. Next year Turkey for the Youth, Pathways Together and the German Summer University as well as being an NGO at the UN and the Language scheme - SYLE. Servas is involved and that is something that we need to put over to people. It is up to every one of us to do that.
Travellers, hosts,
I recently had a discussion with a host about the behaviour of her travellers. She agreed that the travellers were not very good in her language, so she spoke theirs. So there was no excuse for them to talk amongst themselves rather than to the hosts. They had arrived much later than originally expected and when fed proceeded to complain about the food. They were up late the next morning and expected the host to find an on going host for them. They were in a group of whom only one person had a valid letter of introduction. It appears that this is an example of how a lot of ground work needs to be done at the interview stage to ensure that people are aware of suitable behaviour. Obviously some members of the group had not been interviewed and hence their behaviour. However the leader should have known better being a member. Perhaps people need reminding from time to time what is expected.
Contents: 2007
1. 2. 3 & 4. 5 6. 7 8. 9. 10 11. Editorial News - Special Days in October Meetings Languages - Chichewa, Malawi Travel and host reports: Europe, Japan Countries: Costa Rica, South America, Britain, Canada Comments: Climate change, Local -Global People - Happy Birthday Bob, Goodbye Sharon, In Rome Peace: Dialogue, USA, Peace Sec Youth - Mary from Malawi
Contact
We welcome articles coming to SI Monthly News. We do not guarantee the article, or any part of it will be published. This depends on the theme for the month along with the number of other articles also available for publication. Preferred method of contact is email at: newsletter @servas.org or jgiffould @aol.com Please make sure that Servas: Monthly News is part of the subject heading. Otherwise if the email address is not recognised it may get deleted before being read.
What is weird?
Chatting with a fellow host, she commented that one set of travellers were 'weird'. I put over that we are all weird in that we each have our own lifestyles. We are all different, just some people are more different than others.
From India was the following message: Today is International Servas Day and also the day where we celebrate Mahalaya the start of the festive season in India for Dusserah in north, Durga Pujas in the east, Navarathri in south, and Dusserah and Dandia in the West. I take this opportunity to wish you all a Wonderful Servas Day and hope this brings all of us together in spirit and mind to strengthen the Servas feeling in all of us and bring back the feeling of Servas togetherness in all our thoughts, feelings and actions. Also best wishes for a very happy peaceful and prosperous well being on this festive day of Mahalaya to you and your family.
francoismarseille@free.fr
For Information You can phone : In German : Sabine Joertz 33 3 88 60 32 66 In Italian : Jolle Chappuis 33 4 50 22 13 82 In French :Franois Marseille 33 4 75 56 13 67 In English : By email : Myriam Michel myriam.michel3@hotmail.fr
San Francisco, USA, ZOCALO - DECEMBER 11 Mark your calendar! We'll be back at our favourite San Francisco location on Tuesday, December 11. Since we always have a big crowd at this location, we are not asking Jeremy to cook for all of us.. The dinner will be pot luck.
As in previous summer universities participants are welcome to actively contribute to the programme. The intention is to offer a framework for engaging in actitivites together rather than just consuming. If you have any special knowledge, interests or talents your are welcome to share these with others and contribute to the programme. Where? We will be hosted by the International Education Centre Jugendhof Scheersberg in Quern The centre is set in a quiet, rural environment, close to the beaches of the Baltic Sea. www.scheersberg.de Costs For accommodation and full board for 5 days including excursions 230,- per person in double rooms shared rooms (3-4 beds): adults 192,- / youth Children under 8: 110,- Registration with payment of deposit (120 p.p.) by 1 February 2008
For further information check www.servas-summer.eu, Information will be regularly updated . For registration forms and email contact: servas-summer@gmx.net Looking forward to meeting you there! The organizers Margret Klser, Erika und Richard Cabassut
Country Reports
First Bi-monthly Encounter of SERVAS - Costa Rica
It happened this rainy afternoon at a coffee shop in Downtown San Jose. There were a lot of expectations for the meeting and, regardless of the bad weather, 13 active members of SERVAS-Costa Rica attend the appointment. Curiously more people attended than for the Assembly promoted weeks ago. In the Assembly we got the idea of copying a model of gathering together that was successful in other Latin American countries: choose a public place (restaurant or coffee shop) and set an appointment there to gather once a month all the SERVAS members who want to share experiences and realize about novelties in SERVAS-Costa Rica. We agreed to set the meetings for the last Saturday of each month at 3 pm, when Costa Ricans are used to having a coffee or tea break in the middle of the afternoon. We also picked up a famous coffee shop, easy to reach: in the middle of Downtown San Jose, which everyone from the different suburbs could easily access. Back to the meeting, besides the 13 members, we also got 2 guests who were motivated to join our movement. During the gathering, we discussed about different strategies to set this kind of encounters in other regions of the country and organized a trip to attend a SERVAS meeting in Nicaragua. Also the members agreed to keep doing this kind of meeting in San Jose every 2 months, so next one will be the last Saturday of September. Note: if you come to visit Costa Rica soon, maybe you could be our guest in one of our meetings and enjoy the famous Costa Rican kindness and hospitality. Manuel D. "Malo" Ramrez, Costa Rica
formal or informal as the organisers want them. However they are recommended to include some Servas discussion points at some point.
On 13 October Servas members in the Cambridge area met in the pleasant village of Fulbourn to the east of Cambridge. Over lunch, which consisted of offerings from people, there were a variety of points discussed. This was followed by a walk in the local woods with the group splitting to account for the differing abilities of the walkers. Over tea people bought the latest merchandise in the form of tea towels. A pleasant time for all with the pleasure of being able to put faces to names.
Comments
Servas and Climate change
I have been an active and enthusiastic member of SERVAS since 1979, first in UK, now in Puglia, S. Italy, I have also been working since its fairly recent formal inception for the Simultaneous Policy (www.simpol.org) an international organisation with activity in over 70 countries, support from such distinguished individuals as the Nobel Peace Prize winning Prime Minister of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, Noam Chomsky, 23 Members of Parliament coming from every main UK political party, members in Europe, where Caroline Lucas (Green) has expressed her intention of spreading the word, the entire Green Party of Australia and so on.... Please look at the web-site. The aim of the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO), by the collective power of the democratic vote, is to agree policies which will enable the peoples of the earth effectively to face down the global causes of the perilous predicament the planet now faces. It is possible and it must be attempted. There is no way in which one person - or even one nation - can save the Earth. Much must change. The activities of unregulated corporations, world poverty, the very real threat of large parts of the land mass (mainly but not exclusively the poorer parts - the parts many Servas members love to visit) disappearing under water or being dried out of living existence; and - linking them all - the criminal monetary games played by banks and individuals. Climate Change - as we all know - is well underway. Perhaps we are already too late to do as much as we could have done about it. Perhaps, as truly privileged individuals, we choose not to look at how our own activities affect the situation. But, as travellers, we have a total obligation to do so. The point I have been making at local and (so far) at 3 Italian national organisations is that Servas members must be amongst World Leaders when it comes to action. All the NGOs in the world can work their socks off, but they cannot, any more, work alone to accomplish their tasks without a planetary home base. We must work together. Today the world's governments are blindly and insanely engaged in expanding international/intercontinental airport activity and in keeping it unregulated. We have the huge task of finding a different way of being there for each other. Servas members are in the front line of this war. Servas existed decades before the era of cheap flights. It must survive this crisis; even lead the way out of it. At this moment obvious sacrifices are called for. To avoid my own need to fly to meetings, for example, I have resigned from the Simpol-UK Board of Management. My children live in the South of France and Bangkok. One journey can be made by coach, the other cannot be made at all without serious thought being given to consequences. Yesterday I spoke to our local group again. They were very supportive and considered it essential that I write both for the Italian national Servas magazine and Servas International. A serious discussion regarding the nature of both the work and the joy of Servas members needs to be taking place. I hold music workshops at national meetings. I've produced, for Servas and Simpol, a book of songs - 'Pace e Benessere' ('Peace and Well-being') mostly English, but with a fair number of Italian songs and a very few others. I would like to ask for more contributions of words, melodies or parts, with piano accompaniments and/or guitar chords as required from around the world; and to make a proper publication available to all. Jill Phillips, Italy
Peace
Dialogues for Peace Action in San Francisco, USA
This is a follow-up to our introductory evening at IChecking the news each day I am depressed by the House on September 4, which opened doors for wars, fighting, murders and generally bad news that are collaboration between Servas and International House. reported. I look for something good. This event is one of many activities planned for the I was very impressed by the article in the link below. week of November 11-16, which is the International Around the world there are many small groups of people Education Week which I-House celebrates every year. trying to solve problems by ways other than fighting. It "BUILDING PEACE THROUGH follows the comment a few years ago by a 6 year old UNDERSTANDING, boy in my class, when we were doing a project on ONE FRIENDSHIP AT A TIME" Nepal. The children were horrified by the fighting in This is the mission of International House at UC Nepal and wrote a peace poem to go on a Nepali site on Berkeley so similar to Servas aims that we want to the internet. The boy said 'Why do they have to fight, see how we can work together. why don't they talk about the problems?' Schedule for the evening: The article gives an example of just this happening 6:30 p.m. Dinner sharing tables with students. Brief presentation by David Gilliam about the between Palestinian and Israeli families and how it all 8:00 I-House Host Family program started by a prisoner talking with his guard. Now for Discussion of host family program; Servas sharing the sake of their children who have been killed they End by 9:00 PM want to bring peace through dialogue. Agenda: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_ 1. Servas members can learn about the host family correspondent/7064104.stm program, through which they can invite UC students to their homes for meals or other activities. The holiday Middle East families united by grief In the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, season is coming up very soon! many people on both sides seem unable to 2. University students can get to know some Servas acknowledge the legitimacy of an opposing point of members and find out how they might become Servas view - but there are exceptions. Jeremy Grange met travelers, either locally or internationally, and also get information about being day hosts. two of them in the West Bank village of Aram. .........prisoner and guard began to talk to each other Students are a promising group of potential Servas travelers and we want to encourage them to look into about themselves, their communities and their beliefs. this possibility. Servas had a table at the UC "Study After seven months of these conversations, the guard Abroad" fair at the end of September and Servas understood - even acknowledged - the claim for a volunteers gave out literature and explained the separate Palestinian state, and Bassam renounced violence, convinced that dialogue would be a more program. The experience of living abroad can be lonely; it may be much more fun if a student has a productive path. chance to make friends with some local people. The Eventually they were able to look at each other not as enthusiasm and openness of many younger travelers, prisoner and guard, Palestinian and Israeli, but as their facility with technology and their flexibility are friends. among the qualities that can revitalize Servas and help ............................ us make a stronger organization
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And here is a newspaper article from Malawi about Mary and what she is doing. Taken from the Weekend Nation News, 25 August 2007
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