SI NEWS 2006 eng Some Of Our Inspirers
From SI Exco News
Joseph GIRARD, founder of Servas-France,
died October 31st 2005. He was 87. Joseph was a modest man. He has been working in a tailors for 42 years in a small town. He was deported because he had refused the compulsory work in Germany during the war. He liked trees and photographs, but most of all he loved people and that's why we have come to salute and thank him.
Joseph, Thank you for creating in France, just after the war the movement Servas whose aim is to build peace through people to people meetings within an international network of hosts and travellers. At first you wrote the list by hand under the suspicious eyes or the authorities of the time. A list of people ? What for? You thought, as we still think today, that meeting and sharing daily life with other people could create solid links and become steps towards peace.
Thanks to your initiative the movement has developed and it is on behalf of 1300 members that we are with you today. We'll always keep you in our hearts.
Jacqueline Spaak French national secretary
Peter Benenson,
Peter, dear friend
(the complete article is in Servas Monthly News, June, www.siexco.org)
Friday Feb 25, in the night, a dear friend, Peter Benenson, an English barrister whose outrage over the imprisonment of two students prompted him to found the human rights organization Amnesty International 43 years ago, died of pneumonia in Oxford. He was 83.
Peter Benenson was not only the known founder of Amnesty International, but a great friend of Servas too. He discovered our association in Italy, where he frequently came. He was several times our guest in our home in Novara, a city not far from his beloved little lake, where Peter rented for many years a little apartment.
Peter Benenson became Servas host too in his country house near London and he participated in the Servas International Conference in Rome in May 1986.
In the 1950s, his human rights activism included efforts in fascist Spain, British-ruled Cyprus, communist Hungary and in South Africa. The one-year Appeal for Amnesty was launched on 28 May 1961, in an article called The Forgotten Prisoners in a British newspaper.
"Once the concentration camps and the hellholes of the world were in darkness," Benenson said. "Now they are lit by the light of the Amnesty candle; the candle in barbed wire. When I first lit the Amnesty candle, I had in mind the old Chinese proverb: `Better light a candle than curse the darkness.'"
He wrote us his last Christmas Card two months ago: it will be his last dear memory. We thank Peter for all. He was really a great friend and we never will forget his smile, his voice, his availability, his intelligent simplicity, his warm humanity, his prophetic intuition, his great imagination.
Luigi Uslenghi, Servas Italy uslenghi[at]fauser.it
Reverend Denys Whitehead
( the complete article is in Servas Monthly News, June, www.siexco.org)
Reverend Denys Whitehead passed away at the age of 82, after a long and active life as a priest of the Anglican Church, first in England and from 1960 in Zambia.. He retired in 1989 after 10 years as priest in Livingstone, and settled in the same town. Denys was born and raised in UK. In the 50ties he hitchhiked around in Europe, before he emigrated, travelling overland to Zambia.
September 8th. 1984 at 7,45 a.m., I rang on their doorbell as their first Servas visitor. I came without any prior notice. Despite coming unexpectedly I was invited to stay - as so many before and after me.
Denys's and Margaret's involvement in all sorts of local activities, their hospitality and compassion for their fellow man and fellow woman reflected the core of Christianity - love.
In 1993 they found themselves the only Servas Hosts left in Zambia, so they became National Secretary and recruited lots more Hosts. In 2000 Denys retired as National Secretary. But in 2003 Servas International asked him to take up the post as Anglophone Africa Co-ordinator. Denys and Margaret attended the Servas General Assembly in Barcelona in 2004.
Towards the end of his life Denys suffered from a severe hearing loss, and had problems with his heart and with walking. But his eyesight and his intellectual capacities remained fit to the end of his life. Denys is dead now, and we have lost a fiery soul. But surely Margaret will carry on their work for the community and Denys' spirit.
Steen Carlsen, Denmark
Remembering late Andre Dalcourt
I hosted in Delhi late Andre & his wife Louise Blanchard( Canadian journalists) as Servas travellers in 1997. They were travelling around the world for a year. Ever since we became lifelong friends. Andre wrote a book on women in Politics by interviewing important women personalities like Benazir Bhutto, Aung Saung Suu Ky, Corazon Aquino, Phoolan Devi( The Bandit Queen from India). He also authored some other books.
Louise tells me that Andre was really a Servas member at heart. Often he told her that one day he would work actively for the association as he was deeply convinced that exchanges of ideas by travelling and meeting people of other countries and cultures are the path for evolution and peace. Even as a special advisor on international affairs to various delegations at the end of his life he worked with same frame of mind. Unfortunately, he did not live long enough to fulfil his dream to get involved deeply in Servas.
He was very informal, affectionate & kind as can be seen from his stamp. It was an exception that his picture taken in Goa without a shirt was allowed to be printed on the stamp.
Gurdev Singh, India
