Childfriend Museum

Interview with Uwe Ostendorff, Secretary General of IFM-SEI

Interview with Andy Piercy, Secretary General of Woodcraft Folk

Interview with an English participant

Hi! What's your name?
My name is Sachit.

Where are you from?
I'm from Central Barnet, London.

Is this your first time in a Woodcraft camp?
No.

And in how many have you been?
I've been in each summer since I was 8 years old so for about 9 years.

What do you think about the participation of foreign delegations?
I think they've done a good job but they could have done a bit more.

What were the things you liked the best here?
Colourful atmosphere, the noise we made. I like the DF events and I liked the cooking of the Hungarian delegation.

And what were the worst ones?
I don't like the weather, the rain in the last couple of days. It ruined Hiroshima Day.

What do you get from the Woodcraft Folk?
You get to learn about other people from other countries and stuff like that, that's what I enjoy very much, the different cultures.

Are you totally satisfied with it?
I'm enjoying coming to camps and I enjoy coming to the sessions.

Do you have any message for the Hungarian children?
Yeah, enjoy yourselves and thank you for coming. Come again!

Thank you very much.

Interview with Uwe Ostendorff, Secretary General of IFM-SEI

Interview with Andy Piercy, Secretary General of Woodcraft Folk

Interview with a Media Center crew member

Hello, who are you?
Hello, I'm Simon Phillips, I'm from Brighton in England.

And what do you do in the camp?
I'm helping to run the camp Media Centre which is running the camp radio, the newspaper, the internet pages and all the computers on camp itself.

Are the participants interested in it?
There's a lot of interest, especially in the radio. We have a lot of people coming in every day, 10 or 20 people coming to do radio articles and to help present live radio shows.

Don't you think it's a boring work after a time?
No, there's always something new interesting, with all the broadcasting news on the camp, rebellions on different places or floods caused by the rain, today we've got the Earth Summit going on which is always great fun, outside broadcasts, you can here live things happening around the camp.

So can you say it is a successful part of the camp?
Certainly very successful. We all have a good time and we think we achieved a lot.

What do you think about the camp in general? How would you evaluate it?
I think the camp's been very positive. We've done a lot and we've got a lot out of it in terms of learning about sustainability and just coming together as a group of people from around the world. We all did a very good work in camp and there's a lot of very good feeling.

So you receive many positive feedbacks, do you?
Certainly, there's a lot of people coming in and in general, people are very high spirited and happy about the camp.

And do you have any message maybe for the Hungarian children?
...(half-minute silence)...come to our next international camp and we hope to see you soon!

Okay, thanks very much!

Interview with Uwe Ostendorff, Secretary General of IFM-SEI

Interview with Andy Piercy, Secretary General of Woodcraft Folk

Interview with Uwe Ostendorff, Secretary General of IFM-SEI

How do you feel yourself now, four months after you were elected as the Secretary General of the IFM-SEI?
I have the feeling that now things start to run. It took me two month to check the situation in the office, questions of financial liquidity, important deadlines etc.. Now we started to develop our projects and implement all these things we decided at the Malmö Congress this year.

How do you evaluate the work of the Executive Committee before the elections?
I spoke with a lot of member organisations during the big events like the IFM -Camp in Wiesen. A lot of people seemed to be very unsatisfied with the situation. Especially the members from Latin America criticised that they were outside of the communication structures and ignored. I saw that some organisation left the IFM or had no contacts. My impression is -and it is not only mine- that the daily work was running but the office was functioning only for itself. There were no initiatives taken by the IFM.

And what do you think about the work of the Executive now?
I think we have a very dynamic new team. Most of the people are the first time in the Executive. At the beginning I expected that we will get problems with so many new EC-members. But we don't have this problem. We started to work seriously and as a team. I want to give an example for the new dynamic. We had a lot of discussions after finishing the last peace project for Middle East and nothing happened. But in June, just 3 months after the election, we had the new Peace Project Association which is now starting to work in Israel and Palestine. Another thing is that we have a new communication structure, we are using more e-mails, we have an e-mail newsletter, we have an own homepage. All those things were done in the first weeks. We get now a lot of reports from the regions, a lot telephone calls and I have the impression that we are working in a closer co-operation than the last EC. So that I think we are in a good way to work as a team.

What do you consider as the most important job to be done in the short term and on the long run?
In the short term, is to continue to develop our communication structures because this is the base. The office in Brussels is very small and has just limited resources but we have a lot of member organisations with a lot of knowledge, with a lot of people who are doing international work like during the International Camp of Woodcraft Folk. To use all this knowledge and all these resources, we need a good communication. This is the first step. The other thing is to look that we have a financial liquidity which is a big problem. But we are on good way.
And for long term my job is to empower the regions. It is necessary to have closer contacts in the regions and joint projects. This must be discussed and developed in the regions. But they must have the possibilities to do it. And the other thing is of course to grow up the IFM-SEI. We have a lot of countries where we do not have any member organisation. We just started to have more contacts and to present the IFM-SEI. I think we are interesting for other organisation. E.g. we have now to Russia where people ask to build up a new children organisation. And it's the same with Poland. So this is a fantastic start.

What are the inner problems of IFM-SEI now?
The actual problem is again the communication. But we are on the way to solve it. The other thing is the financial situation which is not satisfying. That's more a problem we can only solve on a long term. We are dependent of the financial support from the European Commission and Council of Europe. To apply for public support to these two institutions becomes more and more complicate. Especially the Council of Europe has less money for youth work. The result for us to live in this situation is that we cannot e.g. reimburse tickets for our Executive and International Committee meetings. Our goal is to have a situation that it is possible for each organisation - whether they come from the rich part of Western Europe or they come from Third World country - to join our meetings.

Are you satisfied with the support the Executive gives to you?
Yes, I am because we try to work as a team. It's now that the whole board is representing the IFM-SEI and that's a big change and also a support for me. I can't be everywhere at the same time. It's the first time that now Vice-Presidents are going to meetings like to Czech Republic or to the Swedish Congress to present the IFM-SEI. We get a lot of invitations and it's important to be represented at these meetings. People must know who is the IFM-SEI and what are our aims and political positions.

How would you evaluate Peter Hanti's work as a vice-president who is fairly young and do you think he is skilled enough to fulfil such an important duty?
Yes, of course. One thing is that it's the first time that now we have a representative from Eastern Europe. The second point is that he is young, and our idea is to have a younger board than before. Maybe the new dynamic is also depending on the age of the members of the board. A third thing is of course that Peter is one of the persons who participated in several meetings, seminars and two IFM-SEI camps. So he has a lot of knowledge which he can use for this work.

Can he rely on the expertise and financial aid of the Executive and especially you to be able to work successfully and to be able to attend the Executive meetings which has actually a basic importance in working?
Yes, as I told before the financial question is one of the real important questions which cannot be solved very easily. But in the past -that's my experience- we didn't looked enough for new resources and now we started to work together with different foundations and we try to find new grants to support the Vice-Presidents for the work in the regions. This will take a little bit time.

So the IFM-SEI in the future will much more rely on the regional work than before.
Yes, that's one of the demands of the member organisations and one of the things we should do if we want to use the resources and the knowledge of our members.

What is your opinion about the importance of the role of the Hungarian Childfriends in Central and Eastern Europe and do you think it fulfils this part?
The Hungarian Childfriends are one of the solid Eastern-European organisation in the IFM-SEI. We have other organisation which are not as solid as the Childfriends and which are not able to run activities outside of their country. One of the reasons to elect a vice-president from the Hungarian Childfriends is that they are one of the strongest members in Eastern Europe. The task of a vice-president is to develop the region, to get new contacts, to support the other organisations in the region and to find new members in those countries where we are not presented at the moment. It is an important task for the Childfriends to give Peter the necessary support to be able to run his job.

You've mentioned many times the major importance of communications and the problems regarding this. Do you think the communication is sufficient among the members of the Executive now?
The communication is now better than before. But not everything what we decided is implemented. We try to use the new technologies a little bit more than before. But with a small budget we have to use the facilities of our member organisations. At the moment I try to find these possibilities for us. A thing which we have started is our e-mail-newsletter. It has just a minimum of layout. But we need a fast information service for urgent and important things especially deadlines for applications, new projects, new funds etc. And member organisations who are e.g. looking for partner for a project, can also use it. We got some positive feedback during the International Camp in Walesby and we will hopefully receive a lot of feedback, articles and demands for contact address, etc.. This is part of the communication between the head office in Brussels and the member organisations.

How would you evaluate this camp? Do you think it represents the values that IFM-SEI stands for?
It is a little bit more than only presenting our values. There are a lot of new ideas. The importance of ecology is shown by this big simulation game called "World on a Tightrope". That's a very new thing. We haven't discussed in this way before. We had some discussions about sustainable development at the Summer School in the IFM Camp in Hungary. We also had this discussion linked to developments of new liberal politics. But I remember that most of the participants -and we had a lot of participants- came from Asia, from Africa, from Latin America. There were only a few participants from Europe. Now, with this camp, the discussion reached the heart of Western Europe, one of the most developed countries. People become conscious about the world-wide situation and the dependencies. We as children and youth organisations must be conscious about these ecological questions because they are depending to question of equality, solidarity, freedom, justice, etc.

May I ask some personal question? How old are you and what is your family background?
I'm 36 years old. I'm a single and I just moved from Germany to Brussels.

So in the future you will live in Brussels.
Yes. Before I started to work the idea has been to stay most of the time in my office in Bonn and just to be one or two days in Brussels. But most of the organisations and institutions I want to visit have their office in Brussels. So I'm moving to Brussels. For me it's important not to loose the contacts to Germany. I'm involved in the international activities of my organisation and the German Youth Council. That's functioning quite well at the moment.

You told that you are single. And a girlfriend or boyfriend...?
With so much activities the private life is not easy. I'm a really single at the moment. But if I would have a relationship it would be with a man. Like a lot of people know I established in the German organisation a network called Queerforum which is similar to the Rainbow Network here in England. I'm very engaged to include also gay-lesbian transgender people in the organisation. I think we should include all people, all races and all sexual orientation etc. So that we are not only a kind of a white organisation of heterosexual rich men. This is what I did in the past. That's also my biography - to be part of an often excluded group. And that is maybe one of the reasons why I'm also on the international level engaged to look that people stay inside our organisation and become excluded.

And do you plan to emphasise this area in the IFM-SEI?
Yes, but it's more to encourage people to run those things on the international level. Concerning the question of sexual orientation I know that the German and the English organisation are co-operating very well and they will take the initiative to open this to more member organisation. I want also to motivate the member organisations to discuss the question of minorities, not only concerning homosexuality. The reality is that in some organisations - also my own - people with a different cultural background are not represented. People with a Turkish or an African background are also real small minority. We have to ask ourselves why is it like it is and what can we do to change it.

The prejudice against homosexuals is strong in Hungary, only the youngest and the educated ones can accept it. Do you think it can be changed in some years?
I think so because if you look back even in those countries like Scandinavia and the Netherlands which maybe are the most tolerant countries concerning this point, it was also a different situation 20 years ago, maybe the same situation like in Hungary today. But it needs time to change the attitude and to change the way people discussing about it. I think a lot of people do not know exactly what is a gay man or a lesbian woman and that needs a lot of educational work. The best thing is to deal with it like a very natural thing. And then people become more tolerant and can accept that there are different ideas of living together. Youth organisations have a special responsibility and can do a lot to educate for a more tolerant society. I'm very optimistic.

As a closure, do you have any message for the Hungarian children or the Hungarian Childfriends?
For the Hungarian children I hope that they do not get frustrated by the way how politic is running. In Western-Europe youngsters just saying: "We just consume and observe what happens. We don't like the political establishment. So we don't join them and let them do what they want to do." I wish that young people are more engaged even if they do not accept the way politic is running today. But there are other possibilities to be engaged and to struggle for own ideas and visions. My message for the Hungarian Childfriends is to empower young people to be involved in the political affairs, to show them the different ways to be politically engaged and how to raise up the voice: to enjoy demonstrations, to run own groups, to use the Internet, to make music, to paint pictures etc.. There are so many possibilities. I hope the Hungarian Childfriends develop their own work so well that a lot of youngsters and children join them and use this educational possibilities to learn how to create a better world. That's for me education for democracy and the development in Austria and Italy shows how important this is.

Uwe Ostendorff, thank you very much!
Welcome.

Interview with Uwe Ostendorff, Secretary General of IFM-SEI

Interview with Andy Piercy, Secretary General of Woodcraft Folk

Interview with Andy Piercy, Secretary General of Woodcraft Folk

You are hosting this big international event, the Woodcraft Folk 2001 International Camp. The Woodcraft Folk became full member of IFM-SEI on its XXIInd Ordinary Congress in Malmö this year. You were also elected there as Vice-President at the same time. These seem to be quite a lot of things for a simple year. Are you satisfied so far?
Well, yes... The Woodcraft Folk changed its membership status in 1979 and now the programme of IFM is much more in keeping with the Woodcraft Folk policy so changing our status and hosting this big international camp and being in a position to go for the elections was something that we wanted to do. And yes, we are satisfied so far.

Don't you plan to host the next IFM-SEI International Camp in 2003 after the visible success of this camp?
Not at all! No. When we organize a camp it takes so long, this one has taken three years to organize so I don't think, I wouldn't personally recommend it. And so I think we will support the plans where it to be as well.

Do you feel in any way that this camp has any deficiency or something that should have been done previously?
Oh yes, always. One can think about how we can do things in a different way. When we evaluate the camp I think we will look at what we were unable to achieve in the programme. We did something that was never been done before and I think when we do evaluate it we will see what could have been done differently. But the weather was the main limiting factor for us.

What do you consider as the greatest and most important task for you as Vice-President for IFM-SEI?
I think to try and see if we can co-ordinate activities at a European level to maximise the opportunities that exist or exchanges and training courses not just at a European level but also with the Mediterranean and Latin American countries. I believe as we pay the taxes we should also try to get the benefits from citizens' taxes in positive way. And it's available, we just need to make sure that we take those opportunities out available.

How much do you think you can rely on the Executive or on any member of it in fighting this?
Oh, that's a difficult question because there are people who are unknown to me but they also have the same problems as I do. They are busy in their own organization. Some people could probably devote more time but they can't attend the meetings so the proposal that came from meeting within the camp of the Vice-Presidents of using the internet to have virtual conferencing that can be more inclusive. So those who don't have the opportunity to travel can still be linked. So that would improve things.

The Woodcraft Folk and the Hungarian Childfriends are in co-operation for years now. The Woodcraft Folk helped us many times - in financial ways too - for which we are really thankful. Do you believe in the widening of common projects in the future since both you as Secretary General of the Woodcraft Folk and our Youth Foreign Secretary became Vice-Presidents?
There are opportunities to co-operate. One example: some districts are hosting training events or other "non-summer camp activities" in the winter or the autumn and in such things the Hungarian Childfriends could be a partner in that process. An example is, my own local district working with Latvia, Denmark, Sweden and Finland in a project at Cuddam in November. And projects like this where we make an application that travel costs are fully supported, those initiatives can be extended and I think that is something what we can develop further. And also we have been working with the Finnish organization, and we've sent people to their training courses and we provided the tutors and now we are going to invite them to one of our training courses so I think these examples are a way of also working closer with the Hungarian Childfriends, do something similar. And if you are willing and we have a project where we want to include Hungary as a partner, then that's something what we can do in the next two years.

So can we rely on your -possible financial- help in financing travel costs, for instance?
Well, the point is, the opportunity for us to the make the applications to the European Union is something that we are doing and done if you know this camp already, and so we intend to still make those applications because we're in a position to do that. So the answer is yes.

Do you have any closing word or any message for the Hungarian Childfriends or the Hungarian children in general?
Oh I think yes, it's true to say that we consider the Hungarian Childfriends our lead Hungarian organization. We do work with another Hungarian partners but not as successful as we are working with the Childfriends and I think the fact that you're one of the two volunteers here is a kind of evidence of our stronger bond between the two organizations. And I think for us next year will be a year when the focus will be moving to other countries and I think that gives an opportunity to consider our future co-operation. But the other aspect is, we need the invitations quite early to be able to take the opportunities. So if there's an event in Hungary we need to know quite early because we calendar and diary our events quite a long way in advance so if the invitation comes just four weeks before or something like this that would be very difficult but if it comes a long way ahead... For instance if we wanted to do something together in the summer we need to make an application in February. So they're just some practical examples but yes, the closing remarks are that yes, I think we can develop our work together and I'm sure that we will try and do this.

Thank you very much.
OK. Cheers!