Austrian Peace Service (ÖFD)
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Personal News:
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The work of the ÖFD was very
much affected by personal changes the last half year.
Markus Pühringer, the only fix
employee, left the ÖFD with beginning of July. Marion Thuswald took over his
task temporarily and from January on Veronika Nietsche will start working. As
Veronika is also working for the World University Service in Graz, the ÖFD will
transfer his office as well from Linz and Vienna respectively to Graz.
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ÖFD News:
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After we had an evaluation
seminar in March with Barbara Müller we decided to have a three day retreat
beginning of October to discuss basic principles and to clarify the future of
the ÖFD.
As most of our civil peace
servants are actually young boys, who do their alternative military service we
are very much affected by the restrictive Austrian policy concerning alternative
military service. We received most of our budget from the respective Ministry
(Inner Affairs), but in future we will have to find much more additional funding.
So our main discussion focused on the question “Should we stop with our field
projects for one year or should we continue working, even if the projects are
not financed? Should we use a year break to elaborate a stronger ÖFD profile or
is the ÖFD anyhow “nothing” without projects?
Finally we decided, that we will
continue only with the projects concerning the period fall 2001 – summer 2002,
for which the financing will be guaranteed until spring 2001. So it looks like
we will reduce our field project activities.
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Projects:
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Right now we have civil peace
servants in following projects:
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Vukovar Institute for Peace Research and Education,
Vukovar, Croatia |
1 peace servant |
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Center for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights,
Osijek, Croatia |
3 peace servants |
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Youth Peace Group Danube, Vukovar, Croatia |
2 peace servants |
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WUS Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina |
2 peace servants |
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WUS Podgorica, Montenegro |
1 peace servant |
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Peace School Mrkopalj, Gorski Kotar, Croatia |
1 peace servant |
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Zenica Independent, Bosnia Herzegovina |
1 peace servant |
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11 peace servants |
We still believe that the
project activities are our strength, the main problem we have to face is as I
mentioned the financing. Sometimes the peace servants have to wait for their
money for more then two months.
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Education and Training:
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From 14th of August until 1st of
September we organized the training for 12 future civil peace servants. The
training was very well received and we plan also again a training for 2002. We
think about opening the training also for participants, who would not
necessarily become peace servants for the ÖFD.