The forumZiviler Friedensdienst/ Civil PeaceServices, Germany

Helga Tempel, Spring 2002     REPORT ABOUT OUR WORK

During last months the forumZFD in Germany has proceeded with the practical work within the governmental program Civil Peace Services . Today 17 trained  peace-professionals are working in areas of conflict and tension, mostly in the Balkans. There is one volunteer trying to uphold communication between Israel and Palestinian groups preparing direct cooperation as soon as the violence will have stopped and the situation will be more normalised. The forum intends to enlarge this program in the Near East by sending teams of well selected and trained people into the area. We hope to get public funding for this plans out of the governmental "anti-terrorism-program".
Another idea concerns possible cooperation with participants of the EN.CPS or other European NGOs. We hope to get a Machbarkeitsstudie" (feasibility-study) financed by the Foreign Office  to explore possibilities and conditions of a joint project in Cyprus. Tilman Evers - whom some of you know very well - is prepared to do so. In case of positive results we hope to  be able to apply for EU-money in support of the bi-communal work that is already undertaken by local groups in both parts of  the island.

Concerning the infra-structure of our office we were able (in spite of still the enormous lack of money) to find more staff working in different fields of the program, which are 1. administration, 2. Project work and 3. training. Head and even more heart and mind of the office is our new General Manager who together with his team is trying hard to establish a more solid ground  for our work and to strenghthen our outreach. With rather new and unorthodox methods of fundraising they try to enlarge the number of donors and donations.

Most of our emphasis goes into  the field-work trying to promote its quality  We sometimes have the feeling that we ought to have a real break and sort out: "What are we doing really? What results do we have? What means and methods are useful? What are important standards that must be regarded, what is our code of conduct?" But there is an urgent need to  go on with planning new or follow-up projects for without playing a consistent part within  the governmental program we could not hold up the office and the whole service structure we need.
Allthough the Bonn office is working efficiently we still depend on voluntary, that means unpaid work of all members of the board - and we suffer by a double vacancy within the team of seven since some months.

In the field  of our training program there was a new and very positive development. Instead of cooperating with four other peace organistions in responsibility of  the 4months training course (which needed a lot of sensibility and listening to each other) a consensus came up to integrate this part of the work into the forumZFD/CPS itself with the advising accompaniment of the others. This means that "Training" will be a new strand of the forumZFD with special staff working as part of our general office.

This altogether positive development was shadowed by the growing violence round the world and the unresponsible, inhuman and peace-threatening military measures that were undertaken under the  leadership of the United States. Our strong connections to other peace organisations  opened a lot of opportunities to join public protest of different sorts. Besides of that we made our own  word, protesting against military interventions, claiming nonviolent methods of conflict resolution and asking for effective measures to insure  better chances for deprived people round the world. "Insuring peace instead of enduring freedom" was one of our slogans