SI NEWS 2006 eng Editorial
From SI Exco News
Teamwork
What an eventful year, both in Servas and globally. Servas has been involved in some of the global events such as: Servas India helped people affected by the December 2004 Tsunami (Servas Monthly News, August), Servas Pakistan helped those affected by the Kashmiri earthquake (p6) and Servas USA members helped those affected by the Hurricane Katrina (p13). In these events individuals worked together in teams to provide greater results than the same number of people working individually.
Servas has had its own events requiring team work. Over the year Exco have been working on the Extra-ordinary General Assembly to be held in Italy in April (p17). In South America Pablo has brought together a team to produce a Youth Event in Patagonia (p14). Meetings have been taking place in most countries. Some of these have had an international flavour, such as in Germany and the Asia meeting (p16). Askov in Denmark hosted a meeting of those concerned with conflicts and looked at ways of conflict resolution (p16), What was learned here will be shared with all in Italy. All these meetings required team work in order to progress constructively.
Discussing themes with my Year 8 (12, 13 year old) students also brought our the concept of team work. They looked at teams playing in local, national and international sports events and commented on the need for the teams to work together. They suggested team work as a suitable design for Servas. They are right. Servas, as local, national, and continental groups and as the whole international being needs to work together as a team. A team where differences are discussed and outcomes agreed on. To be peace makers we have to show good team work to lead others. This can happen everywhere.
Websites, Web members and Servas Monthly News
For those with access to the internet there is plenty of opportunity to find out what is happening in Servas. The initial Servas website: www.servas.org has links with other useful sites. One of these is www.siexco.org.
SIEXCO is Servas International EXecutive COmmittee. This site contains plenty of information about what is going on at the top and includes such events as the EGA (p17). Another very useful part is the Servas Monthly News which contains details sent in from around the world as to what is going on. Several countries send in their newsletters so that we can keep updated about what they area doing. The most recent is that covering South America. If you want to take part in discussions then use the link to the Forum. Let your views be known and share ideas with other people.
Some countries such as Denmark are setting up web membership so that people can receive mailings via the web rather than postage. This is in common with many other organisations. It allows fast contact and cuts down the cost and time of postage.
Your contributions to SI News
SI News is produced by the articles that you send in. Some of the articles are taken from the Newsletters of various countries, some are taken from former issues of Servas Monthly News. Not all articles can be used for a variety of reasons. If you sent an article and it is not in this publication, it might be in one of the Servas Monthly News on www.siexco.org.
SERVAS NEEDS MORE VOLUNTEER WORK IN SOUTH AMERICA
Many South American countries would benefit a lot if they could count on more hours of volunteer work. There are several projects that could be activated in South America, that would strengthen Servas in that continent.
Roberto Borenstein, Area Coordinator for South America, has thought of several work possibilities and he is looking for volunteers to work with him, even they live in a different continent.
If you feel motivated to help in the development of Servas in South America, please write to southamerica[at]Servas.org
This invitation is open to any individual or National Group interested in contributing to a faster development of Servas in South America.
