Proposal #31: Village 2.0 - Building Local Friendship.
I propose the following changes to the Village program:
- 23 days, 10 delegations
- Up to 40% delegations from the hosting NA (up to 4 delegation upon total of 10), upon request of the host: each delegation will be "representing" a different group (ethnical/national/cultural).
- 1 full leaders weekend, JCs comes 1 days earlier
- No second family weekend
- "Smaller/refurbished" national day/night activities/presentations
- Less excursions: 1 or 2 in the whole camp
- Closer contact with leader and participant before and after the program
The proposal above comes with the idea of addressing all the following limits of the actual village program:
- High costs of hosting for the chapter (financially hard to support)
- High costs of traveling for the participants (exclusive on the econmolical level)
- Big effort for CISV administrators to overcome burocracy (laws on minors, laws on VISA, laws against terrorism, insurance requirements in foregners countries, etc.) with no success guarantees (exclusive towards some countries)
- Big effort for chapter to host 28 days villages in term of an extra week availability (the extra effort required might weaken a chapter rather than strengthen)
- Big effort for leaders and staff to be available for 28 days, maybe using all their vacation from work (exclusive to people which cannot spend all their vacation month from work at a camp)
- Big effort for kids and families to be apart for 28 days (exclusive to these families)
- Educational standards varies a lot between camps (lack of training of the adult group)
- A CISV Village is a "pink bubble" is completely apart and hidden from the real world (no co-operation with other parties of the real world including local society, nor direct effect on chapter strength)
- Villages have a start and an end (lack of continuity)
- Is not integrated with the other local programs/activies of CISV such as IPP and Mosaic
- Contain travel costs, including more people
- Have bigger impact on local community and therefore acquire more support (also economical) by institution
- Create networking with other parties and recruit more volounteer, therefore strengthen local chapter
- Ease the burocracy needed for the participant to attend and relieve the chapters of part the effort needed to host, to not to weaken chapters
- Create integrated strategies with other local programs/activities of CISV such as IPP and Mosaic Moreover using the possibilities offered by technology a longer and lasting experience can be created.
- The impact on aim 1 and 2 is only determined by the word SHORTER, this will determine better trained volounteers, which still are needed in order to offer higher standardized educational standards.
- The impact on aim 3 is only determined by the word LOCAL, but considering nowadays multicultural society being more local doesn't mean to have the same cultures present.
Respectfully submitted, Teo (ITA)
4 Comments:
Regarding point 3 noam mention:
We have to consider that already 25% of the camps yearly have 10 delegations and that already several camps have not been filled (assuming that putting together all the delegations that don't show up we get to a total of 3 camps). On the longer run having "easier camps" to organize and an embedder rewarding system such as direct impact on the number of delegations from the hosting NA, will allow us to host more camps with higher increasing hosting rates.
Regarding point 1 noam mention:
Having "up to 4 delegation" does not force the Nas and chapter to go immediately in this direction but will allow them to move towards this goal with their own pace, accordingly with their plans.
Already some successful experiences in this directions are carried on at the national/local level, as what CISV USA call something list "village of nationalities and ethnics groups".
Regarding point 2 noam mention:
Training is always the problem but i there are few things which should be considered of the new format:
a) 1 full leaders weekend, jcs comes 1 days earlier: The first weekend of the camp is fundamental to create good adult group as is very important to create a strong JC feeling
b) closer contact with leader and participant before and after the program: with the means of technology and the development of friends will be possible to actually start the "village experience" from the day participants are notifed to have been selected by the chapter and join the friends village group. This will establish a stronger relation especially between adults so that upon camp arrival the group won't start from scratch. Morover after the activites using the tool that friends will offer in the future the camps feelings and relations will be able to last longer with mailinglist, forum etc.
c) more training for leaders: less time require better preparation for leaders, they have to get to the camp with clear in mind the objectives. IVC will have to put more effort in this direction
d) super traning for staffs, which they will have more responsibility: considering the actual situation in which in the vast majority of camps leaders are not enough trained the staff will have to be able to assume a more relevant role in the content planning of the camp, assuming the guidance figure.
Obviously this does not solve the problem, but are measures to go in this direction
Village is CISV's biggest & most traditional programme. That makes it also the one that is most resistant to change. Never change a winning team? But is the Village a winning team? I'm not sure. I tend to agree with Teo that a number of changes are necessary, but I'm not sure that the ones suggested are the best ones, or even achieve an improvement to the programme.
I do like the "intercultural" vs. "international" approach, however, the concept of putting together "ethical" delegations leaves a sour flavour in my mouth: Sorting people by ethical backgrounds may be even more exclusive (even racist) than by nationality or place of residence (=our current practise). In the future I would like to see CISV more as "interpersonal" than "intercultural"...but let's not open another can of worms.
My favourite part of this proposal is the one that more than one delegation could be provided by the host nation. I'm all for cultural balance and all that, but the 1 delegation per country concept can't guarantee a balance either, so why not give it up? Also this could tie in beautifully with Adam's proposal.
Finally, talking about the 21day village (I know some people want to throw up when this discussion is brought up again) my feeling is that the intension was good and all arguments Teo provides are true, but in the real world the 21day village failed (from what I've heard). So we need to find other triggers to make Villages better, cheaper and more.
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