4u2 - For you too - Roland Brunner

Federation for Social Defence 

Ringstr. 9 a * D-32427 Minden * +49-571-29456 * soziale_verteidigung@t-online.de 

 Three month report to the European Network Civil Peace Services

The Bund has organised its work around four headings: education, nonviolent intervention, pacifism/antimilitarism and nonviolent society:

Education

The Bund several training programs for people working in schools and with youth, seminars for parents, a peer mediation program in a school etc. Usually, we co-operate with institutions in setting up these trainings, that means that we unlike other training organisations do not offer courses on our own, but send trainers on request.

Supported by the state of North-Rhine Westfalia (NRW), a new program called "Creative Conflict Transformation in the Communal Context" has been launched this year. It consists of several trainings for people from local authorities and civil society in a few communes of NRW. Its goal is to reduce violence on the local level by creating and supporting networks of violence prevention.

Conceptually situated between 'education' and 'nonviolent intervention', the Bund has -again with financial aid by NRW - for the first time sent two participants into the 4 month CPS course who plan to work on civil conflict transformation in Germany, not abroad. One of the participants expects to work with a local Pax Christi group in a youth project. The other is still without project; the Bund is in dialogue with her to help develop an adequate project for the time after the course.

Nonviolent Intervention

Until now, the main commitment of the Bund in this field has been the international project Balkan Peace Team. BPT stopped its work in the field in early 2001, and it will be dissolved after carrying out an end evaluation by the end of the year. Its French Branch, Equipes de paix dans les Balkanes (EPB), plans to carry on the work on its own, sending new volunteers to a new location within Kosovo. EPB is urgently looking international support.

In the meanwhile, the Bund has set up a process of exploring new options for projects. Accompanied by two action researchers, it looks into different options - a CPS project being one but by far not the only possibility discussed so far. It is hoped to come to a decision by next year.

The Bund is also one of four partners preparing a conference on the Caucasus (2.-4.11.).

Pacifism/Antimilitarism

After having discussed the future of pacifism in our annual meeting in March 2001, the Bund has started to make the first steps towards a larger event envisaged for the year 2003 or even 2004 - a conference with several hundred people on "Civil Visions". It would deal with the question on how to abolish war and the military in the face of current challenges. The Bund hopes to find some partner organisations from different countries to join in this effort. 

After September 11, the daily work has of course been much dominated by protesting and mobilising against the coming war. The Bund has published one appeal, written a letter to all MPs, and is one of the organisations preparing a national demosntration in Berlin on October 13.

Nonviolent Society

This area of work overlaps very much with education. Besides what has been described here, there are no other current activities. (In the past, there has been for example a conference on the concept of 'inner security.)

October 5, 2001

Christine Schweitzer

4your questions and contacts: rbr(at)4u2.ch