SI MONTHLY NEWS September 2006 Editorial
From SI Exco News
Youth and Rights
This month's issue has quite a lot relating to Youth. On page 6 we find out about how active the Youth section is in Argentina. On page 9 Pablo keeps us on track with his article on Youth and Leadership for Servas Central America. On pages 10 and 11 we get the update and details of the Servas Youth and Family Event to be held in Britain next year. It is good to see that Youth Sections are functioning well. It is important that they do this to keep Servas on the move. If many Servas members think back they will realise that they were rather younger themselves when they joined Servas!!
In my job as a teacher I naturally have a lot of contact with young people (currently 9 to 13 years old). In class the other day we were looking at Rights. We were thinking about the meaning of the word Rights and then seeing how it applied to us. One boy came up with the idea that a Right was a privilege that one is allowed to have. I then looked round the room and told the class that I had the right to: 'interrupt while the teacher was talking', 'push someone as they came into the room', 'kick the next person's chair', 'fiddle noisily with my pen', ....... The first class were horrified, and I pointed out that I was just listing what they seemed to think were their Rights. To my surprise the second class seemed to think these 'Rights' were OK.
Today's youth, as we did many years ago, have much to learn about rights and how to apply them. But that applies to adults as well, especially those in power. In Servas, at all levels, from youth through to adult we should be reviewing our rights and those of others. Do we unintentionally abuse our rights? What about our rights as Servas members, what about our rights in our own communities and countries. Do we ever demand our rights to the detriment of others? As part of the learning process it is important to learn and accept that although we may have certain rights, there are times when they may conflict with the rights of others. The various options then need to be considered with the aim of the best for all rather than just the individual. So with rights come responsibilities. From what our Servas youth are doing they would seem to have a good comprehension of responsibilities. With this they should be good at considering the rights of others.
Well done to Servas Youth.
Request - Please could articles be kept fairly short. Ideally they should fit into one column. In this way I would not have to cut chunks out of them to make them fit. Thanks
Email Subject lines
Just a comment from someone who receives a lot of
Servas related emails.
Please could everybody, when contacting anyone in Servas, about Servas, please put Servas as part of the subject line. There is so much spam about that we become very cautious about opening unknown emails. If Servas is in the subject line then we are more likely to open it. eg: I will always start the subject line as Servas: and then put in the topic eg: Servas: travellers; Servas: hosts; Servas: newsletter; Servas: accounts.
I write this as I have just deleted a number of emails in my spam folder which had no subject. I did not bother to open them as that sort are usually spam. Then I checked the next no subject one, it turned out to be a query from someone asking about Servas.
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[at]servas.org or jgiffould[at]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.
The postal address is:
Jane Giffould,
SI Monthly News Editor
20 Weavers Row,
Halstead, Essex, CO9 2JX,
England.
uploaded by Amelia
