CISV Devils

Welcome!

2009-01-05T14:00:00.007+01:00

CISV Devils is a website dedicated to improving the international peace education organization CISV by proposing outside-the-box ideas. From 2005 to 2008 62 proposals were submitted to this website and discussed in the comment threads of each proposals. Read more about the purpose of CISV Devils on the About page. To get you started, here are the top 5 most-discussed proposals:

1. Proposal #38 Children living happily
2. Proposal #50 CISV exit strategy
3. Proposal #21 No national nights
4. Proposal #28 Gender whatever
5. Proposal #29 World of chapters

In 2007 a new section called CISV Is Crap was added, which introduced another way of discussing controversial issues of the organisation.

As of now (January 2009) CISV devils is over, dead, closed for good. The proposals will still stay online, and for a while commenting will still be possible (no new peoposals will be accepted, of course). I'd like to thank everybody who contributed with proposals, comments or crap and especially those of you who gave feedback on the general structure of the site and helped with promoting CISV Devils.

Oh...one last thing...if anybody is interested in what the editor has to say on CISV, please check my new (experimental) personal blog on CISV matters called From The Balcony.

Proposal #62: The more the merrier.

2008-12-29T11:17:00.001+01:00

I propose to make CISV an organization that would not be mainly spread by word of mouth.

Rationale

I think CISV is big enough to start making serious efforts to take it to schools, universities, etc. And change what for many cisvers is one of the most important characteristics of the organisation: every new CISV member is backed by another CISV member. Being spread by word of mouth guarantees till some extent, that every newcomer is going to be someone that easily fits in the CISV world, which is good. But seeing how big CISV is nowadays, I think is about time to start giving opportunities to those who do not have friends inside CISV but would love to be in it, in conclusion, trying to be a bit less exclusive, that however we try to hide it, we still are.

Respectfully submitted, Máximo (ESP)

Proposal #61: ISS.

2008-12-15T11:16:00.000+01:00

I propose that instead of 3, we only keep one International Staff for Seminar.

Rationale:

It costs a fortune. This year, over 40.000 £. I suggest that with this money we build, every year, a CISV house in a different country. This would keep camps cheaper for a generation, and allow us to increase the quantity and quality of all our programmes.

Respectfully submitted, Marcos (BRA)

Proposal #61: Exit IJBC.

2008-12-08T00:00:00.000+01:00

I propose that no more IJBCs are being held.

Rationale

With the growing strengths of regional JB structures,and the IJB-team as a de-facto JB-committee that meets during pre-AIM, it's the logical next step to scrap the IJB-conference altogether and make the best use of the human and finacial resources elsewhere.

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER)

Proposal #60: Sabbatical.

2008-12-05T11:11:00.000+01:00

I propose that for two years we host no International Programmes or AIM. This time would be used for chapters to re-organise their local resources and learn how to be self-sustainable and do local education.

Rationale:

CISV Chapters often have no clue of what they are doing. The success of a village is measured more by the budget impact than by the educational impact. A good chapter is a rich chapter, not a chapter that does more activities. Still, most chapters are poor and don’t do activities.
A reason for that is they are constantly focused on “looking for kids” and “looking for leaders” - leaving no time at all to actually be organised (meaning: an organisation). If we took two years off from camps, and used all our resources to focus on organisational development on the local level - we would be able to much more solid chapters - that can function and understand the organisation based on what it wants to achieve, rather than by what “the IO tells us to do”.

Respectfully submitted, Marcos (BRA)

Proposal #59: Same AIM.

2008-12-02T14:19:00.001+01:00

I propose that from 2010 the AIM is hosted always in the same country. It should be a major European airport-hub and tickets-costs should be shared among NAs/Participants.

Rationale

Having AIMs being hosted every year in one continent is quite fun... We get to travel every year to a different country, and usually take some time to travel around the area. Fun - but not worth it.
Keeping in mind that an AIM (including tickets) probably cost to the Organisation and its volunteers more than half a million Euros (yes.), think about it:Changing AIM hosting country makes the staff change every year. With that, it’s impossible to have relevant quality increase at the AIMs themselves.A lot of time of the planning of AIM is spent in actually giving information (“what do you need”, “is this fine?”, “not sure we can make it”). If this part was taken care of by itself, we could actually focus on improving the content.People say we change where AIM is hosted to “give a change to develop every NA”. This is a joke. With the money we save by having AIM at the same place, we could host at least 10 additional chapter workshops every year. No development project costs half-a-million.
So, I suggest CISV hires one full-time employee to work to organise the conference with a team of volunteers. This could be either in Frankfurt, Paris, or wherever is cheapest to fly to. We would host it every year in the same site, what probably can make things more adequate and cheap.
Maybe not at many people will go (since many are more attracted to the scenario than to the work), but well - it could be good.

Respectfully submitted, Marcos (BRA)

{ Background: Annual International Meetings take place every August following a rotation scheme: Every other year the conventions takes place in Europe, in between the location switches between Asia and the Americas. In the next years the AIM will be hosted in Guatemala 2009, Germany 2010, Indonesia 2011 and probably France 2011 }

Proposal #58: Success Story Conference.

2008-11-19T17:04:00.000+01:00

I propose that CISV hosts an international conference, where we teach the secrets of CISV's success.

Rationale

If we look at our organisation from a different perspective it is a great success story. I'm more than sure there will be other people (from other NGOs) interested to learn how we do things. Workshops during the conference would include topics like:

How to keep an international volunteer work force happy?
How to fundraise for international work camps?
How to become a member of UNESCO?
How to administer 8000 participants a year with one tiny office?
How to rebrand a volunteer organisation?
How to organize an annual conference?
How to keep up to date with educational content?
How to establish a high-quality new international programme within 10 years?
How to develop an alumni database?

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER)

Proposal #57: Fundraising Game.

2008-10-24T00:06:00.000+02:00

I propose that CISV develops an online game with the purpose of fundraising.

Rationale

Fundraising does not only mean collecting external money to support CISV. Much alike BINGO nights, I think CISV could raise more money from its own members. By this proposal I would like to suggest, creating a fun online game, where CISVers could participate by donating a small lump of money. Whoever wins the game, gets to decide where the money goes.

To make it more plastic: Let's say a few juniors wish to run a minicamp, but don't have the money for it. They could invest 10 GBP, and if they are lucky, they win a "jackpot" of 500 GBP to run their project.

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER)

Proposal #56: Don't facebook Friends.

2008-09-08T13:57:00.004+02:00

I propose to scrap all efforts of making CISV Friends a social networking website and focus on developing it into an administration tool.

Rationale:

In the light of the rapid development of social networking websites such as Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Xing, etc, there is no chance a non-profit organization as CISV can be successful in establishing a competition: CISVers today look for each other on Facebook in order to establish old lost CISV connections and use the multitude of interaction tools to stay in contact. Even though CISV got the idea right, the Friends website will hardly able to remain attractive for its members to revisit the site over and over again.
So, I suggest CISV friends keeps a few core functionalities, such as an individual "all-camp-address-list", but otherwise is redesigned in order to work as an administration tool for IO, NA- and chapter officials. There is still some huge potential.

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER)

Proposal #55: LW => Mosaic => LW.

2008-06-29T10:01:00.006+02:00

I propose that Mosaic is re-rebranded into "Local Work".

Rationale

When CISV felt that Local Work was going no where we decided to monitor the NAs to see what kind of LW was actually taking place. The result of the monitoring initiative revealed that Local Work was a facade with not much behind. Local Work was not cool, not sexy, could be everything, was nothing, and was't even happening in some of the biggest NAs. Along came Mosaic - the new funky Local Work - with a clear motto, more detailed concept, lots of tools to derive from and support from a growing committee. Today, after three years, what has changed? Mosaic can still be everything and nothing, with the exception of a few motivated individuals it is still not happening on a big scale, and all with a much greater effort of bureaucracy (deadlines, forms, etc) co-ordination and training.

Before the label "Mosaic" becomes a synonym for "all that we always wanted to do but never did", I suggest to make a symbolic move and rename Mosaic back to "Local Work". Take time to reconsider what the real problems of this concept is within CISV and how to make it happen in a way that it can have a real impact on a local/national level.

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER)

Proposal #54: Educational Tours Inc.

2008-06-27T10:56:00.003+02:00

I propose to make CISV an international travel agency offering all our existing programmes, educational programmes for the whole family and soft skill trainings for managers.

Rationale:

CISV's educational purpose and goals refer to making participants interculturally competent.

There are a lot of CISV participants that call CISV a "bubble" and they struggle with implementing what they learned in CISV in their everyday life, also because it is hard to explain and share the experience and to express it. If CISV were a travel agency that did programmes for whole groups of families/ friends- people would have this experience with a group that has an everyday life together and it would be easier to implement what each individual learns in CISV into the everday life.
We do have recruiting problems. Making us a travel agency would imply proper PR and marketing which we could reach more people with and better target our clientele. People are willing to spend a lot of money for a 2 weeks all-inclusive club, I bet they are willing to pay the same money for an intercultural adventure if it was promoted in a proper way.
Semi-voluntary: The fact that we are a volunteer organisation is a nice atmosphere but it makes us inefficient, unprofessional, it hinders growth and achievement of goals in various ways. The CISV travel agency could be a semi-volunteer company where bureaucracy is managed by employees and the programmes are carried out partly by volunteers. Also, programme chars/ Committees would be hired and had to fullfill certain requirements (like knowing the goals of their programme, for example).
From non-profit to profit. With our profit, we could support other organisations as well as our own - This could be a solution to the "CISV is only for the rich kids" problem.

By making CISV a travel agency, we could stop being an "idealistic bubble" and start being a serious educational organisation.

Respectfully submitted, Babsi (AUT)

Proposal #53: CISV Second Life.

2008-06-15T00:07:00.000+02:00

I propose that CISV stop hosting Villages, Interchanges, Summercamps, Youth meetings and Seminar Camps. Instead we create an interactive internet-based computergame to build global friendship.

Rationale

CISV is outdated, it is old, and hasn't been developing much. Our Village program is pretty much the same as it was back in the 50's. In the meanwhile the world around us has gone through a huge development. Tools such as internet, computers, cell phones, laptops, webcams etc. has been produced, and CISV doesn't benefit from it. If you used the money we spend on our "normal" programs such as Villages, Interchanges, Summercaps, Seminar Camps and Youth Meetings, on developing a computergame we would be able to reach much more people. This also lets people who can't afford travel discover and experience CISV. Not only would we reach a lot more people, but we would also safe the enviroment for all the CO2 we use by flying from one place to another. We often speak about how to spread CISV, and this can be done trough a computer game and good marketing.

Respectfully submitted, Tore (DEN)

Proposal #52: When I'm twenty-wow-wow-one.

2008-05-21T00:10:00.000+02:00

I propose that we redefine JB so that the age 21 (rather than 26) is the upper age limit; after the age of 21 a CISVer should no more be called "junior" nor take part in JB-meetings or JB-boards.

Rationale

In CISV we define someone under the age of 26 as a "junior" – regardless of if he/she is active in the junior branch (or not) and what type of leadership in entrusted upon him/her in CISV. In example, in CISV, 21 is the age limit for when we are allowed to act as leaders in international programmes, more and more of the leadership in the organisation is entrusted to younger CISVers (in example as Trustees) and a majority of our programmes are run by leaders and staff under the age of 26.

Respectfully submitted, Anonymous*

*the author of this proposal is known to the editor, but wishes to remain anonymous

Proposal #51: CISV wants YOU!

2008-05-08T22:30:00.000+02:00

I propose that CISV sets up a real army, with bombers, tanks and infantry to intervene in crisis areas in order to prevent human rights disasters such as the genocide in Darfur.

Rationale

At some time we must realize, that education is not enough. People that believe in peace and human rights must act. Helping out in homeless shelters will only touch the tip of the iceberg. If we want to save lives and create justice in this world, we have to "stamp the present" even harder. I believe there is a good chance that we find enough volunteers among CISV who would be willing to invest more than a few weeks in the summer for a better world. These people should be recruited and gathered in a fighting squad that can intervene in order to prevent many a man-made disaster on this planet.

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER) with inspiration from Paul (GER)

Proposal #50: CISV Exit Strategy.

2008-04-16T22:10:00.000+02:00

I propose that CISV is closed down and we administer the money that we spend in one year to a different Social Organization.

Rationale:

CISV and JB are often speaking of empowering people to reflect and act. Up to now i dont see this happening in an appropriate way. This is because CISV likes to achieve its goals on the long run. My idea is to help right now and to make a radical change with immediate consequences.
The CISV machinery eats up a lot of money, if we give this huge amount to a sophisticated humanitarian organization, we might help thousands of families, children, animals, plants (whatever would be decided on) all over the world.

Respectfully submitted, Paul (GER)

Proposal #49: No more penalty.

2008-03-02T14:05:00.000+01:00

I propose that the current system of penalties is abandoned and replaced with a bonus point system.

Rationale

As every psychology student learns in the first year of college, conditional learning works way better through rewards than punishment: Instead of penalizing an NA or chapter that doesn't fullfill the requests of CISV international, I suggest we create a system that rewards NAs and chapters who do so.

Examples:
No cancellation of delegations: 20 points
Village DPAF sent in on time: 5 points
Full delegation to Summer camp confirmed by deadline: 5 points

These bonus points could then be used in different ways: First choice in camp invitations, number of camp invitations, etc, etc.

Besides the psychological learning effect, this would also reduce the necessary amount of money transfers to IO.

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER)

Proposal #48: CISV: done.

2008-02-03T11:21:00.000+01:00

I propose that a membership in CISV has a limit of 10 years. No matter what you do in CISV - participate, lead, volunteer or staff - after a decade of CISV, it's over.

Rationale

If people participate in CISV, become leaders, and later chapter board members, the CISV world will only turn in circles. Furthermore, there is only so much CISV can teach you. At some point it is time for an individual to move on - to take what she or he has learned and apply it elsewhere. And last but not least, to create space for new people joining the organisation.

Respectfully submitted, Sarah (USA)

Proposal #47 Parlez vous anglais? Pas moi.

2008-01-17T20:32:00.000+01:00

I propose that we make www.cisv.org (to begin with) available in more than one language - which is english by the way. I was thinking that at least it could be available in French and German, and ideally in all languages that are represented at the moment in CISV worldwide. I would also suggest that native speakers or competent "knowers" of those languages take on this task in order to make the translation as clear and simple as possible. What i had in mind as a possible equivalent outcome was the European Union's site (europa.eu).I think this will be a simple way to take us a step further in making CISV more known, more accessible and less excluding (since this was and still is a popular concern in CISV).

Rationale

Every single time i had to give a presentation during a meeting with parents of potential future cisv participants and i had to suggest the CISV site as a reference, i realized that only few of them knew English or knew it well enough to understand what is written on the site.
That's cause they represent the generation(s) of French or German speakers, more fashionable languages back in the days. I am thinking that then, after this change, they could check out the site and then ask for further clarifications.
I am quite sure that there's more people confronted with this problem within CISV.

Respectfully submitted, Ioana (CISV Romania)

Proposal #46: Building global democracy.

2007-12-16T15:45:00.000+01:00

I propose that CISV develops, and makes all body's that call themselves CISV (incl. National Associations, Junior Branches, Funds, Chapters, etc, but excl. International Office) subscribe to "minimum democratic standards". These standards should be formulated in such a way that a individual CISV member can use them to claim their rights towards the body (and/or file a complaint) and for CISV International to train by and evaluate from. By democratic standards I mean clear statues, free information, equal decision making capacity, transparent decisions, open elections, open agendas and inclusive leadership.

Rationale

Body's in CISV are generally fair, just and democratic. However, obvious exceptions exists, on all levels. Apart from leaving a bitter taste in the mouth of us who believe in both CISV and democracy these undemocratic structures also:
- hinders development,
- fouls our brand,
- stops engagement, and
- maintains unqualified leaders.

(And, for those of you who now will answer that democracy is a "western" idea, I just want to preempt by pointing out that I'm not suggesting anything that is not already practiced by i.e. the UN General Assembly.)

Respectfully submitted, anonymous (author known to the editor)

Proposal #45: Children living happily...

2007-11-12T20:51:00.000+01:00

I propose to change the name of the CISV-Song into "Village-Song" and limit its use to villages only. This means that it would be inappropriate to sing it in any other program or on any CISV-Meeting internationally, nationally or locally.

Rationale

The song starts with the words "Here in this village".

Respectfully submitted , Eli (GER)

Proposal #44: Content Audit.

2007-10-19T22:34:00.000+02:00

I propose that all existing programmes (in this I include IYM and IPP as well as the current full programs) go through an audit process every five years on a rotating basis. During the year they both analyze and revise the programmes as necessary, and if they are not able to be on track by the end of that year they go back to experimental status.

Rationale

I envision the audit to involve the committee, the Educational Officer, and whatever other resources are needed, (but it could be done in another way-perhaps EDR could help).

This would also lead to every committee having a four year plan (with an audit/planning year at the fifth year) which would keep our programmes moving forward with good momentum.

Any programme eventually demoted to an experimental status, or any new programme, could re/gain their status by passing through this audit system.

respectfully submitted, Sarah (USA)

Proposal #43: The one-hundred pound participant.

2007-09-18T19:33:00.001+02:00

I propose to simplify the international fee structure to a single fee of 100 pounds per participant per programme.

This fee will replace "international membership fee", "particpation fee" and "host fee" or any other fees paid to IO by the NAs - except the insurance fee.

Rationale

CISVs current fee system may exist for a reason. It may be the result of a a historic development. It may take the individual nature of different porgrammes into account. It may favour some programmes over others (deliberately or not). But one thing is sure: It is terribly complicated: What is the difference between a membership fee an a host fee? Why do Seminar camps have an extra staff travel fee?

Therefore I suggest to radically simplify the fee system to one single fee that an NA pays per participant per programme. At that shall be 100 GBP. With 5700 participants anticipated for 2008 it will easily cover the anticipated costs for all committees, AIM and IO excluding insurance, roughly 500.000 GBP.

I would like to leave it to the NAs to adapt this fee to their needs: You want to raise funds for hosting camps? Charge 200 GBP instead! You think 100 GBP is to expensive for YM compared to village? Charge villagers 150 GBP and YM 50, as long as IO gets the 100 on average.

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER)

Proposal #42: Commitees and NGOs

2007-09-17T17:12:00.000+02:00

I propose that each committee and taskforce will be in charge of networking with NGO of their area of competence and this will be included in their terms of reference. In particular in O-15 will be included as IJB responsibility the networking with National & Regional Youth Councils.

Rationale

NGO team of ERC did an amazing job pushing the organization to realize how important is to reach out cooperating with other NGO. Now from the PUSH approach we have to move to a PULL approach in which every committee is resposable of its own NGO relation, established in the framework designed by ERC.
This is because each committee has such specific issues to deal with:

IJB is the perfect body of the organization to enstablish relation with Youth Councils
IPP to enstablish relation with working camps NGO
IVC to enstablish relation with NGO working with kids
IRMC to enstablish relation with NGO working on risk

Is un-realistic and un-fair to let only ERC to deal with all these relations.

Respectfully submitted, Teo (ITA)

Proposal #41: Restructure CISV international

2007-09-04T17:27:00.000+02:00

I propose that an effort is made to find a big international consulting company that will advise CISV to completely re-arrange the work done by CISV international with the goal of reducing cost to 50%.

Rationale

I strongly believe that for the fact that we are sending only 7000 people to camps every year, I believe our international budget is extraordinary. The biggest numbers in our budget are insurance, IO and AIM. Being an optimist, I think with some clever re-arranging of our work, these costs could be reduced by 50%. Some examples of how this could be achieved are:

Move IO to a location where rents and labour costs are less expensive
Reduce IO full time staff to 2-3 to cover administration and install computer software to run the rest
Create working space at IO for 5-6 interns who will work for a small salary for 3-12 months on specific projects
Host AIM only every two years
Select AIM locations that will save money on both ends (travel and accomodation)
Re-arrange the work between IO and volunteers in a more clever way.

Reducing international cost will have a number of enormous benefits:

Participation fees could be reduced making CISV more inclusive
A suprplus could be used to speed up filling our self-insurance fund
Chapters and NAs will have more cash to run activities

Since this is such a complicated and huge effort, I would suggest that we try to find an international consulting company (McKinsey, BCG) that would be willing to a study of this kind for free. A search for Ex-CISVers working in such a company may help finding such a company.

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER)

Proposal #40: Chapter Category System.

2007-07-22T17:42:00.000+02:00

I propose to create a Chapter Category system to replace the current NA Category System as follows:

FULL CHAPTER: A Chapter that hosts all CISV programmes in the course of 5 years, has an active Junior Branch and hosts Mosaic projects every year.
GROWING CHAPTER: A chapter that hosts some CISV programmes within 5 years.
DEVELOPING CHAPTER: A chapter that takes part in CISV programmes within 5 years.

Only NAs with at leats one full chapter or 5 growing chapters have voting rights at the AIM. The Membership fee to CISV international should reflect the number of full/growing chapters.

Rationale

Most people agree that our current Category system is out-dated for numerous reasons: No NA has ever been downgraded, also the majority of NAs are just one chapter. Furthermore hardly any NAs still fulfill the criteria to be in their respective category. I would like to see a new system that encourages the formation of strong chapters. The main idea behind this is critical mass: 2-3 families cannot run a sustainable organisation, that's why chapters should be encouraged to grow into all areas of CISV. Also a chapter will never understand all aspects of CISV if they only run, villages. A course of 5 years asks a chapter to run one programme almost every year (village, summercamp, seminar camp, maybe soon youth meeting and IPP) plus interchange and Mosaic. Some NAs are organized in a different way, and may prefer to have a bigger number of smaller chapters instead, which should be respected, but not encouraged - hence the voting right for NAs that consist of several developing chapters.

Respectfully submitted, Nick (GER)