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General Information
LOCATION
Merriott Hotel Nazareth (4 star superior hotel)
The hotel has an outdoor pool.
ACCESS
About 2 hours by car from Ben Gurion Airport
DATE
September 07-10,2000
CLIMATE
Weather in Nazareth in September is warm and pleasant during the day and
cooler in the evening. No Rain. Temperatures range from 19-29 C(64-82 F). Take a
jacket for the evening.
LANGUAGE
The official language of the
Conference is English
48
th EEMA YEO CONFERENCE
7-10
Septemper 2000
Hotel
Renaissance
Thursday 07.09. 2000
After an informal dinner at the hotel all participants came together for the official Welcome Meeting which continued unofficially into the late hours.
Friday 08.09.2001/8/14
Early morning moderators meeting
Plenary Opening Session
Welcome addresses
Irene Lewitt, Conference Chairperson
Dear friends, distinguished guests from the Interfaith panel Rabbi Klein-Katz, Father Khouri and Sheikh Austria Aziz; Peter Kroen, Director Elect and Past Distrist Governor who comes to us from Austria as the representative of President Devlyn. We are glad that it is a representative from Europe; District Governor David Amiel; Governor Elect Benny Naveh; Past President of the EEMA Conference, Werner, we all know you; President Richard Buss; Vice President Penicaud, Our Youth Exchange Officer and our new friend in Evanston, Elizabeth Gruenther, Our Youth Exchange Officer Jossi Blootrich; members of the organizing committee and all of the Youth Exchange Officers and their so important partners.
It is a great pleasure to welcome all of you to the 48th EEMA conference. We are happy that so many of you accepted, and are here with us in this town in this special year. The conference is also somewhat special in quite a different way. It’s the first time in 48 years that the conference has a chair person and not a chair man. It was a great privilege to be asked to help organize the conference together with our President and Vice President and the conference committee here in Israel. May I introduce them to you: Many of you already or still know Netzach Davidi, our Past Youth Exchange Officer and the vice-chairman of the conference, Eli Nakhle and Suheil Saba from the Nazareth Rotary Club; Aida Serouji, President Innerwheel Israel and Elham Haddad , from the Innerwheel Nazareth who will take the ladies around and Olly Reshtick who will take care that everything will be above board in this conference. You have seen in the program that we have a very full agenda. May I use the classic expression and wish you fruitful deliberations to continue and renew our work with the young people of today in youth exchange. Welcome to all of you.
Peter Kroen: Representative of RI President Frank Devlyn.
Shalom, Boker Tov, Good morning, honored representatives of our great religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Mr. President, dear chair Irene, our dear guests, ladies, friends. First of all let me thank you for the warm reception and hospitality I received when I came here, and to you Netzach for bringing us friendly and safely from Ben Gurion to Nazareth, thank you. President Frank Devlyn of Rotary International asked me and invited me to attend this conference. I am New Generations Task Force Coordinator and I think in this function he wants me to join you here. He expressively said he wants to demonstrate Rotary International’s commitment the Youth Exchange program, and so I will bring you the president’s and the board of Rotary International’s greetings and best wishes, and their appreciation to your wonderful commitment. It is really a great honor and pleasure for me to be here with you, and be assured that I will be fully involved in your program with great attentiveness and participation. I will listen very carefully and sympathetically to all matters of this conference, especially for better integrating physically disabled youth into the exchange. But you are all committed and experienced experts in youth exchange, so let me say a short word to the most important interfaith dialogue. Every dialogue presupposes tolerance, and tolerance however is not a viewless person without conviction. Tolerance means to grant to a person of different beliefs the same intelligence and the same good will, which I claim for myself. So I think it’s really a hard discipline. But then we can find and recognize the common human rights which are involved in it and rose out of our religions. This will grant to all respect, understanding and peace. So I wish you, me and Rotary International a very interesting and very successful conference. Thank you very much.
District Governor David Amiel,
Dear participants, Shalom and Beruchim Haba’im. It’s a real pleasure to have you here in Israel. We in the district are very glad and happy that the decision was made to hold the conference here in Israel and in Nazareth. I appreciate your coming to the Promised and Holy Land, especially your coming to Nazareth, during its celebration of the year 2000. I know that those of you who will tour our beautiful country will enjoy and take home a memory that will last a long time. Director Elect PDG Peter Kroen, President Richard Buss, Vice President Jean-Claude Penicaud, Past President, Werner Keller, we are glad to have you with usl, thank you for coming. I want to thank my friend PDG Yusef Srouji for the decision to host this conference here in Nazareth. I especially want to thank and appreciate the wonderful work of Irene Lewitt the chairperson of the conference, Natzach Davidi, the Vice Chairman, Jossi Blootrich, Youth Exchange Officer of Israel, Roni Behar, and the conference committee. All of them worked day and night on their individual tasks to make this conference a success. I am sure that during these days, in addition to fruitful discussions, we will feel a real friendship, and this excellent Rotary project will benefit all of us. Thank you all.
PDG Yusef Srouij
My friends at the high table, dear
fellow Rotarians, there is saying in Arabic which says “Our town is shining
bright and glittering because of your presence here with us”
My friends, I hope that you all will enjoy a fruitful and a happy stay with us here, in Nazareth, the rest of Israel, in the Galilee and in Jerusalem. I want to take this opportunity to thank Reverend Werner Keller and President Buss for helping us to have this Millenium Conference here in Nazareth. It is a delicate question for us. We tried our best, Irene, Amiel, Netzach and all those responsible to assure that you will have a fruitful and a happy conference here in Nazareth. It is a Millenium conference and I hope that you will never forget it, that you will always remember your stay in Israel and Conference in Nazareth. Thank you.
Mayor of Nazareth Ramez Geraisy
Good morning to everyone. At the beginning I would like to salute you welcome you all from all over the world, here in Nazareth, at this conference and thank you, mainly the organizers, and Rotary Nazareth, for holding this conference here in Nazareth in the year 2000. I don’t know if I have to tell you about this town. It is one of the most well-known sites in the world. The Annunciation, the beginning of Christianity, took place here, in Nazareth. And it is the home town of Jesus. Christianity is called Arabic Nasranya after the name of city, and in Hebrew Natzrut after the Hebrew name of the city.: Natzeret. So in the languages of area Arabic and Hebrew the name of the city, Nazareth, is reflected in the name of the religions because this place is so important. Because of that, it is rich in holy sites, in historical places, and it’s one of the most important destinations for pilgrims, who come to the Holy Land. About one million pilgrims-more than one million last year – visited Nazareth. Of course we tried to do our best to prepare the city towards the coming millennium, the beginning of the millennium, with a project that we call Nazareth 2000, which started in the early nineties. The whole city is in the process of completing a huge project of developing the infrastructure, beautifying the executing environmental projects.
But in spite of all the efforts, and it was really huge efforts, we did not yet do all that we planned to do as we started from a very low point because of the political situation. I am not going to talk a lot about it, but Nazareth on the one hand is the biggest Arab city in Israel but it suffered like all the Arab minority in Israel-Arab villages and towns,- from a discriminatory policy for a long time. Project Nazareth 2000 was the motive to change this policy, this attitude of the government. And it really was changed, mainly between ’92 til’96, during the period that Rabin was Prime Minister. There was a new atmosphere of approach toward peace, the beginning of negotiations in the Middle East.
That atmosphere also supported the efforts and the change in the policy toward Nazareth and the Arab minority in Israel in general. For us it was the opportunity to push the idea of preparing the city for the year 2000 and the new millennium.
I would like to express our support and appreciation for your effects to bring young people together and to exchange experiences. It’s very important, and your efforts to do that through Rotary International, Rotary here in Israel, Rotary Club Nazareth, will be successful and will lead to better understanding. It becomes even more important now that the whole world is wide open. It becomes important to know each other, to know the heritage of each other, to know the differences between each other, and to try to live with these differences with respect and to be ready for co-existence between peoples, nations and cultures. So again, ahlan usahlan, welcome. I wish you fruitful discussions and a successful conference here in Nazareth. Ahlan usahalan.
Richard Buss, President of the EEMA YEO Conference
Dear Friends
Just before I left home, I heard from our Italian friend Pietro Valentini the sad news that one of our honorary members, Harriet Emmer, passed away last month, just before her ninety-second birthday. To those who have had the pleasure and privilege to know her and her husband, mentioning her name brings our thoughts back to that charming couple, Franco and Harriet. Regretfully Franco passed away a few years ago, since then we also miss Harriet at our conferences. We miss the radiation of this Italian-American connection, we miss their friendliness and style. In Youth Exchange they were an example of quality. Will you please stand up and commemorate this fine woman. Thank you. There are also letters with greetings from people who regret not being here: from Don and Nadine Wachholtz and Tom Eileen Proctor. Don and Tom had both received the Citation of Merit last year. There are greetings from Alec and Ella Kier, honorary members who still are very dedicated to the Youth Exchange. They mentioned in their letter they regretted that the deaf students’ exchange for South Africa stopped and wishes us success with this subject at conference. Greetings came also from honorary members John Pedley and Norman & Margaret Wellens. There was a phone call from Friedrich Neddermeier that due to the illness of his wife they could not come to the conference.
This morning the incoming Governor Benny Naveh brought me a nice surprise: the pictures of the first Youth Exchange Conference in Israel in 1968. His father was the first Youth Exchange Officer in this country. Benni also took part in that conference. You should see his photo, it’s nice to see how young he was at that time. But what I am proud of is that in the photograph we also see P/P RI Sput Teenstra, the Dutchman who was the founder of this conference. We will commemorate him and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the conference in another two years in Holland. You have seen the announcement here. The history of Israeli Youth Exchange started in ’68 but it has been very active ever since. The next conference here was in1979. Regretfully two years ago Izzy Loonstien passed away who was one of the most active YEO in strengthening Youth Exchange in Israel. And of course not to forget Irene’s late husband Israel. In 1992 the conference was held in Jerusalem dedicated to him. As Governor Elect and Youth Exchange Officer he had invited the conference to Jerusalem but regretfully could not fulfill the task. I am very glad that Irene could now execute the inheritance in organizing this conference. We are glad that we are here again. Thanks to the accuracy and dedication of our conference chairman Irene Lewitt and her organizing committee, I’m convinced that we will have a wonderful conference. Thank you Irene and your committee for all the work.
When Jean-Claude and I discussed the program around the chosen theme for this conference, we realized that between all the discussions about new items in this program we should not forget that we still run some perfect programs, -that could be made better.
Not long after an interfaith dialogue between thousands of religion leaders of the world, our theme is more actual today than we realized at the moment we decided upon this town two years ago. Knowing more about the differences can eradicate prejudice and create respect and acceptance of the differences. Stimulating this dialogue especially among youth people can further more peaceful living in the same area.
Have you ever thought of becoming blind, from one moment to the other. Then close now close your eyes and realize that this is your future. What are the first things you think of – how can I do this, how can I find that? These are the problems you have to solve when you exchange a blind student. Keep your eyes closed. Do you realize how many useless impressions you don’t see any more? This gives you a lot of time to concentrate on real problems. Feel the advantage of a blind person who due to his situation can add a lot of positive experience through this disability, which you can become aware of only by communicating with them. You can open your eyes now. This is only an example of a long list of benefits that are excluded from the program because we are not blind. We look away so we don’t know the problems exist and we don’t have to have bad feelings about this discrimination. In this conference Jean-Claude will give a start to help you on the way to this rewarding challenge to make Rotarians aware of the positive effect of integrating young people with all kinds of illnesses or handicaps in our programs. If you want it there is a way to do it.
If you want to gain the support of Rotarians thought our work, then in my opinion the most important thing is quality in all its aspects. When conditions are stipulated concerning closing dates, age limits, etc. etc. in the invitations- or any other special kinds of conditions-and all of these are not respected this leads to a tremendous lack of quality. This is the same when the program has no recognizable contents to support our ideals. We want to serve with this program. So be aware that lack of quality is the biggest threat to our program. And realize that exchanging young people can pose certain risks – there is a paragraph about it in the YE handbook. But this year on the pre-convention in Buenos Aires Christopher Gould, opened my eyes about a lot more that can go wrong. I am glad he has found time to come to speak to us this conference. Of course speaking about the risks and problems of our program may seem like a threat but we as Youth Exchange officers cannot close our eyes to it. This is not meant to demoralize, but should lead us to the excellence we need for the continuity of our program. With the help of our moderators and panelists, we can accomplish this. I wish you all a good and pleasant conference, so that you will go home with the feeling that the time and money spent to visit the 48th EEMA Conference in Israel 2000 was worth it. To work. Shalom!
Plenary Session 1
YOUTH EXCHANGE- INTERFAITH DIALOGUE
Introduction : Irene Lewitt
I would like to thank Rabbi Michael Klein-Katz, Father Doctor George Khouri, and Sheitkh Abdul Aziz Boukhari for having agreed to come and be the panelists in our Interfaith Dialogue. There are actually many topics we could and should discuss for our work in youth exchange in today’s world. How to deal with cultural differences, which are sometimes ethnic differences, how to accept the other, how to confront the generation gap in today’s fast developing technological society. But the main ingredients to overcome the differences in all those subjects, is to get to know each other, to get to know each other better, and written in very big letters we should add TOLERANCE.
This applies especially to our theme of this year’s conference,”Youth Exchangd and Interfaith Dialogue”, a theme which asks to be discussed in this year 2000 since the birth of Jesus. We shall do so now with our distinguished panelists, and I have the privilege to introduce them.
Rabbi Michael Klein-Katz was born in Philadelphia, has a B.A in Religions Studies and a Master’s Degree, and Rabbinical Ordination from the Hebrew Union College of New York. He served as a rabbi in several Reform congregations until he moved with his wife and two sons to Jerusalem. He devotes himself to inter-religions and inter-cultural dialogue in many programs, mainly with young adults. He is also a faculty member in sabbatical program for the Catholic clergy of Ecce Homo Institute of the Sisters of Zion Convent, and has contributed articles to many publications.
Father Doctor George Khouri of Greek Catholic church was born and raised in Nazareth, sent by the church to study in Rome, where he obtained a B.A. in Philosophy and in Theology. He went on to a Doctorate in Pastoral Theology and Psychology. That’s why he has two sides to his visiting card. On one it says Father George Khouri, and on the other it says Doctor George Khouri, Psychologist. After many professional appointments in his worldly profession, he is today a lecturer on the Canon Law at the School of Law at Haifa University, and President of the Religious Council of the Greek Catholic Community in the north of the country.
Our friend, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Boukhari; as you can tell from his name, has his roots in Bukhara, a region and town in Uzbekistan. His forefathers, from a family of Sufi Sheukhs were sent to Jerusalem to take care and be in charge of Sufi adherents during their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The family still lives in the same house where they started out in Jerusalem in the Via Dolorosa, which interestingly enough is situated exactly opposite the Ecce Homo Convent where Rabbi Klein-Katz teaches. But they didn’t know each other until yesterday. Abdul Aziz grew up in Jerusalem and later lived for twenty years in the States. He returned to Jerusalem to continue the family role and tradition as Sufi Sheikhs and also to serve as the head of the Naqshabandian Religious Method, which is a stream within Sufism. He is also head of the Uzbeke Community in Israel. Abdul Aziz has five children, and the youngest is-(Sheikh: five months. He is very active. I had to bring something for the new millenium!)
And of course you all know Werner Keller, serving here as moderator. You know him as one of the longest serving members of Youth Exchange, and one of the most thoughtful ones. We also know him as a jolly good fellow and for the past three years as EEMA President. Werner was born and brought up in Heidelberg, in Germany, studied education, philosophy and theology at Heidelberg University. He lived for a year and a half in India as a post-graduate student, studying Indian philosophy and religions. He served in the church ministry and education. I met him in one of the last months of his professional life in Heidelberg wearing his robe as Reverend of the Holy Ghost Church.
Moderator Werner Keller:
Ladies and Gentlemen; outside the high impressive tower of the YMCA Hotel in Jerusalem, just opposite the famous King David Hotel, we can read in the three languages –Hebrew(Ivrit), Arabic and English, the following words:”Here is the place whose atmosphere is peace, where political and religious jealousies can be forgotten, and international unity be fostered and developed”. This text has been formulated by the famous British Field Marshall, Lord Allenby in the year 1933, the year when the Nazi government in Germany, started its horrible and intolerant oppression and terror. Here, amongst us, is the place whose atmosphere is peace, where political and religious jealousies can be forgotten, and international unity be fostered and developed. This year 2000, the annual conference of the National Youth Exchange Officers of Rotary International from Europe, Africa and the Near East – that’s why EEMA – East Europe, East Mediterranean, Africa – with outstanding guests from other parts of the world, altogether from 30 countries, meet in Nazareth, the home town of Jesus of Nazareth, on his two thousandth birthday, in whatever the different calendars may count this anniversary.
Within the framework of Rotary Youth Exchange during the last few years we discovered increasingly the cultural and educational responsibilities of our work in youth exchange.
Exchanging more than eight thousand young people in one-year exchange, family to family or holiday camps and round trips, we need quite more to do than just doing a good job in organizing, risk management, and discussing application forms and insurance problems.
The theme of this Conference 2000 in the Holy Land is Rotary Youth Exchange and Interfaith Dialogue. We are aware of the fact that exchanging young people and children, we are also exchanging human beings with their own identity, social and cultural, and with that included, different religious backgrounds. Passing the threshold into the new millenium is a powerful symbol of hope and reconciliation, of something concluding and of something beginning anew. This passage into a new century evokes feelings of new possibilities for change. We are moving into a world where the other, the different one, more and more enters into our lives in ways never before experienced in history. There is no precedent for the new experience of globalization and of exposure to such a vast variety of cultural and religious traditions throughout the world. University is no longer an abstract concept or prayer. It is a part of the concrete reality of everyday life. The question is, how will we relate to these new realities.
It is a great pleasure to moderate a dialogue and a panel discussion with three outstanding persons representing Judaism, Christianity and Islam. To encourage us to start with this dialogue and discussion in this first plenary session of the conference, I want to repeat Lord Allenby’s words: “Here is the place whose atmosphere is peace, where political and religious jealousies can be forgotten and internal unity be fostered and developed.”
Now I would like to ask the members of the panel to present give their ideas to us. This as the first step, than we shall open the discussion, dialogue and questions to the floor. So you also have the chance for answers and contributions, or for sharing with us some experiences in this field. May I start, maybe historically, and ask Rabbi Michael to give his contribution first.
Rabbi Michael:
Thank you Werner. I thank Mayor Geraisy for joining us in this historic gathering and I do emphasize historic. It’s not commonplace to see the representatives of the three great monotheistic faiths sitting together, although it is becoming much more popular. I would like to begin, with your permission, with a prayer for interfaith meetings.
Lord of all creation, we stand in awe before You, impelled by visions of the harmony of humanity. We are children of many traditions, inheritors of shared wisdom and tragic misunderstandings, of proud hopes and humble successes. Now it is time for us to meet in memory and in truth, in courage and in trust, in love and in promise. In that which we share, let us see the common prayer of humanity. In that in which we differ, let us wonder at our freedom. In our unity, and in our differences, let us know the uniqueness that is God. May our courage match our convictions and our integrity match our hope. May our faith in You bring us closer to each other. May our meeting with past and present bring blessing for the future, and may we all say, Amen.
As Werner said, we’re going to be very brief. It’s difficult for a rabbi to speak briefly, but what I’d like to do is, I’d like to organize my thoughts into three major – four major challenges that I face when I enter into inter-religious dialogue. I hope that you will be able to relate with these. I think that my fellow panelists will definitely relate with these. I would also concomitantly like to offer antidotes to these challenges. What do I mean by that? Let me tell you. As Irene said when she introduced us, I am an American, you can hear that in my accent. That’s not a surprise. It is a surprise however, that I have chosen to make my home in a place so foreign to my roots, my national roots, my birthroots, and my birthright. That’s unusual and surprising, it certainly surprised my mother. “Where are you going? What’s wrong with this home? You’re talking about another home”? So why did I come here? I came here because of different kinds of roots, historical roots, spiritual roots, religious roots, cultural roots. And as you heard I served congregations in New York for about ten years, and New York, as I might remind you is the largest Jewish community on this planet, two and a half million Jews live in New York. So it’s extraordinary that I felt like I was a fish swimming upstream living in New York as a Jew, because I was living in American as a Jew. America that does not follow my calendar, does not speak my language, does not allow me full freedom to follow exactly the way my tradition dictates. I know that sounds heretical, because America – it’s the great democracy, but need I remind you that the Civil Rights Act was not passed until 1961, I was 11 years old, how old were you?
I say this because when we made “aliya”, when we came here to live, and we would go back to the states to visit our family because we don’t have family here, and when my son was four and a half years old and we took him back to New York, and we’re walking on a Saturday morning, remember, it is an ordinary Saturday morning in New York, and he says to me: “Daddy, what are they doing over there”? and I look over and they’re building a house and I said to him that’s what they’re doing, they’re building a house. He said: “But abba, it’s Shabba”. That’s means, “Daddy, it’s the Sabbath”. Right, it’s Saturday morning. I don’t know if any of you can relate, if you’ve never been in Jerusalem on a Saturday morning you probably don’t know what I’m talking about, but our Sabbath dictates a complete cessation of routine, so that nothing is open. There is no public transportation, there are no schools open in the Jewish sector, there are no shops, there are hardly any cultural events. It’s hard to find a restaurant, a theater that’s open or a movie. So this is what my child knows from Jerusalem. Saturday morning, everything is closed, you don’t see people buildings houses where we live in Jerusalem. So he says, “Abba, what’s this? They don’t have Shabbat? What are they? You know, bad people – what’s going on here”? I looked and said, “These look like Central American workers, they are probably Christians, they’ll have their Shabbat tomorrow”. So you could see this little four and a half year old kid, his shoulders relaxed, a smile came on his face and he said, “I understand Abba, tomorrow they’ll be Jews”. And now your laughter reminds me of the expression my mother taught me – in Yiddish, “You laugh and I cry”. Why? I mean, after all this is why we moved here. We moved here so my children would have a natural, organic Jewish identity. That it would be their primary identity. So now when my four and a half-year-old son says to me: “Abba, tomorrow they’ll be Jews”. I should be happy, but I’m not happy because there is the upside of the Jewish renaissance, and Jews living in a sovereign Jewish state, and then there is the down side of what we call
“ethno-centrism”, “ethno-culturalism”. That he sees the world only from Jewish eyes. Even though he has Christian friends, he has Palestinian Moslem friends, and he has a full range of cultural identities, with whom he comes in contacts with constantly. But “ethno-culturalism” – it’s a major challenge. And the way I see it, the only antidote to that is “multi-culturalism”. Tolerance, the word “tolerance” has been used here very much this morning, so what is tolerance? Living with people that are different from you.
The second major challenge that I find in inter-religious dialogue is what we call Triumphalism. Triumphalism means, “I’m right, you’re not; I win, you lose”. Is it true to say that most of you are Christians here? I was brought up in Christian America, we used to sing this Christmas carol. And I can’t sing but I’m going to impose this on you. “Come all ye faithful”; you know this, so how does it go? (Audience sings with him) Come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant. “And triumphant”, that’s it. Joyful and triumphant, that’s it, I don’t have to say anymore. What is the triumphant? I can see “joyful”. Joyful I can see. What is the triumphant? You have to win, we have to lose? You have to be triumphant, you have to be the victors, we have to be the victims? Where is that coming from? What is this? The three of us, we share many, many sacred myths, and many of them draw us closer together.
But many of them – they tear us apart. And they express triumphalism.
Or another word I’ll teach you. “Seccessionism”- it means we were the old faith, Christianity is the new faith. Or Islam is a newer faith. Why do Christians call my Bible “The Old Testament”? and their Bible “The New Testament”? Why are my people referred to as “The Children of Israel”, the old Israel and the church is “The New Israel”? This is secessionism. They have succeeded us, because they are triumphant. They won, we lost. They got the truth, we didn’t.
We share many, many sacred stories. The binding of Isaac. We call it the binding of Isaac because that’s what it says, in Genesis XXⅡ. Christians call it the sacrifice of Isaac, because it foreshadows the sacrifice of Jesus, for them. Moslems call it the binding of Ishmael, because for them it wasn’t Isaac that Abraham took on that mountain, it was Ishmael. Okay. Now why does it say in my Bible, when God is calling Abraham to take his son to this mountain to prove a point, and I won’t get into what point he was proving, but to prove a particular point and to start a new religious revolution and consciousness, why did God have to say in Genesis XXⅡ: Take your son, your only son, the son whom you love, take that son Isaac to the mountain that I will show you? Why? Why does it have to be your only son? It’s clear, it’s clear from the text it wasn’t his only son. Ishmael was clearly his other, his first-born son. That’s what the text says. So why does God have to say- why do we have to picture a God that is exclusive, that is elite, an elitist? Why do we have to picture a God that is confined?
Do you know the story of Jacob and Esau, the two twins in the Bible? Do you know the story? The point is that here is the story of twins. They are twins. Okay. One came out first, Esau came out first, so he’s supposed to be the first born, he’s supposed to get the blessing, the benediction, the inheritance and all of that. And his brother the twin, who just happened to come out a few minutes later but is being pushed by a Jewish mother behind him, right. I’ve had a Jewish mother, I know what this is. Pushed by a Jewish mother, (a Yiddishe mamma) to be aggressive, to be more affirming, to grab the birthright, to grab the blessing and all of that. You know the famous scene, Isaac their father is dying, and you know this famous expression in English “sheep’s clothing”, so Jacob comes in, in sheep’s clothing because his brother Esau was very hairy. So he comes in sheep’s clothing because his brother Esau was very hairy. So he comes in sheep’s clothing, he deceives his father, he gets the birthright and blessing, and then his older brother comes in and he says to his father, “What’s this? No blessing? You don’t have a blessing for me? Is there no blessing for me, father”. And here again you have this conflict of the God, the father, the patriarch, who chooses one and not the other. Why does it have to be that way? why can’t both the boys have blessings? Why can’t both the sons have a share? Now this is a major challenge not just for theologians, Bible scholars, people of religion.
This is a major challenge for you as well as for me. Because if we are going to be everything we want to be in this Youth Exchange we have to establish new kinds of models that are going to show a God that is inclusive, not exclusive; a God that is boundless, a God that is a parent to us all and has blessings for more than one child. I’m going to stop there. Thank you.
Father George Khouri
I was not born in Philadelphia so my English is the Arab English, not the American English. As you heard from Irene, I was eleven years in Rome, so my strong foreign language is the Italian one. I am so happy to be with you here, sharing this encounter. It was very important for me to agree to take part in this dialogue when I was asked three months ago and was invited to share this meeting with you, because the issues are so close to my heart. If we forget sometimes that the only thing which can help us in this life is to be a human being, we shall lose the nature of a human being. And we will be just like the other creations. God from the beginning wanted us different from the others. So we have to be in fact different. We have a language, we have different languages, but the first language, the very important one, the basic language is to accept the others. And if we don’t haven this language it will be very difficult for us.
Yesterday when we got together at dinner and were talking, I was thinking what I can say to you this morning. And also thinking that I am in trouble, because at the same time I actually should be with the other priests, with my brothers in Haifa, at the Bishop’s house for the monthly meeting. And I told my brother Werner that I have a difficulty. After that I went home and said to myself that I made my commitment already three months ago and I should be here this morning. Now I am so happy that I am here.
When I came home last night I spoke with one of my sons, and I asked him what he had prepared for school today. And he showed me a short story in Hebrew, and this short story spoke to me, and I asked if my brother Rabbi Michael would help me with the translation:
A young tree grew in a grove of trees.
Around him grew up trees that were
larger than he.
He looked around and he saw a man with
an ax in his hand. So the tree turned to the man and he requested this: “Cut
down the trees that are around me. Because it’s very crowded here around us.
And the trees around me, they are taking all the sun from me. Also they are
taking the air from me, and also the good land”. The man fulfilled the request
of the young tree. And cut down all the trees around him. And so the tree
remained, lonely. All of a sudden a storm comes up with a great wind that rips
the tree out of its roots and throws it down on the ground. Ah the tree said
what a fool I was when I asked the man to cut down all those trees around me As
long as we were together. We could have really defended ourselves against the
strong winds. And now I am going to die and there is no one who will save me.
I am very happy that we have in our schools this kind of stories, because it is very important one, it is full of meanings for our life – how to be alone, how to be together and what is the importance of solidarity, and what does it mean to be an altruist, and not an egoist, or ego-centrist. It shows us the great importance of solidarity. This tree hadn’t any solidarity, and he was alone. I don’t want to be alone, and I don’t agree that any one of you will be alone. So what can we do to be together? We should have the good will to take advantage of this good world, of this good land as we say in Hebrew, together and not use it just for oneself and forget the others.
What is the meaning of my life? I can’t from my nature, be alone. Because from the beginning God wants us to be together. Even the monks in the monastery, where they are living in seclusion they are not alone, they have contact with God and with nature, and together they have an interpersonal relationship. And they chose this life because they are praying there for us. But we are not in seclusion, we are not in a convent, we are not in a monastery, we are in the daily life so we have to have a different prayer, the prayer of the dialogue, and how we can have a dialogue one with the other. If we don’t know that the dialogue and the reconciliation is the only way to live a full life and to give support to myself supporting the other, how can we do it?
A man told me, a month ago that there was a fire in a house in my neighborhood, two houses away. I asked him, “when you observed that there is fire there, what did you do”? He said, “Nothing, I saw that the others are running there to help, I watched them to see if they need any help and would call me and I was ready to give them help”. So I asked him: “ But you know that the others are running and you saw them, why didn’t you run with them?” He says: “it’s a little bit far away from my house”. “But if there is not the solidarity from everybody are you sure that this fire will not come close to your house and perhaps inside your house”? we have to think about that.
On the other hand when we have the possibility to eat good food, and we know that the others haven’t enough food, what can we do? I don’t want to preach ideology now, but this is the reality of our life. As a psychologist I deal with these questions, as a priest I have to face these things, and now as the president of the court of my community in Israel I encounter these difficulties. I have to be a good judge for these problems. Especially when dealing with issues of maintenance and alimony for the children and for the wife. It makes me suffer to meet such troubles and problems and difficulties, which so often could be avoided.
Dialogue dear friends. It’s a word but it is much more. We need to be educated for it. It was said this morning that we have to be tolerant. I don’t agree with a lot of my friends about the meaning of tolerance. Tolerance should not mean that I have to be tolerant of a bad man, of a bad person. But if we use it in the meaning of acceptance, then I agree.
Because the basic problem is that we weren’t educated to accept the other person who is different. And this is also the importance of democracy, and the meaning of our faith in Christianity. You can see that in all the behavior of Jesus in the New Testament, in the Acts, of the Apostles. I am not going to give you a lecture about this meaning. If we have a faith and we haven’t the will to translate this faith in our daily behavior, what is the importance there is no meaning to life because the body without soul means death. And Jesus said also: “if you love me so that I should love you, this is not the love which I want”.
And to this we have to pay attention in our daily life: How to accept the other with his differences. He is different, he has another ideology, another job, another opinion. He is against me, how can I accept him and be together and build together our future? Or do we forget that we have a future? I don’t know. Is this the end of our life? No we have children, there is now a new generation, so I have to have, first of all from my own personal needs the will to meet you. I meet you, we have a mutual meeting, we speak one to the other, we listen – dialogue without listening is not dialogue – we listen one to the other, so I know your needs and I will take it into consideration.
But if I never meet you, how can I know that you are Jewish and you are with a kippa, and on Shabbat you don’t work. So I will phone you on Shabbat, I will disturb you. But if I know that this is one of the differences, of your personality, of your choice in life, so i will respect it. And I learned it because we met together and we spoke together. This is very important. Yesterday when we met and had the discussion I mentioned that sometimes I am not so happy when we all the time speak about the common issues, or the common points, because we haven’t the courage to speak also about the differences. It is more important to accept you with all the differences. It is true that in the beginning, for the dialogue, for the first meeting we have to be together and to share together the common points. After that we also have to enhance the differences between us. Because if I don’t learn about these differences I shall not know you well and I can’t take into consideration these points. And I cannot give you the right response to your needs. If our schools educate our children, or we were educated in this way, life would be easier, and we would need fewer psychologists or perhaps psychologists for other things.
But if I haven’t tolerance intra-personal, before the inter-personal, how I can have it with the other? If with myself I have it not, if in my family I have it not it, how can I have the tolerance with the Other. So the dialogue, the tolerance should be first of all in my home, in my family. Sometimes I hear on the TV or in the mass media that there is conflict between Christians and Moslems, between Arabs and Jews.
But there is also conflict between Christians, and there is conflict amongst the Moslems, and there is conflict between Jews, - the religious and the secular, the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim. Conflicts happen between Catholic and Protestant, between the Orthodox and the Catholic, the Sunnite and the Shiite. In Algeria all of them are Moslem, in Afghanistan all of them are Moslem. So the problem is not to be Christian or not to be Christian. I am so happy in my Christianity. If I am a good Christian I have to be good with the others and to accept them. And it’s not important if they are Christians or Moslems or Buddhists. The important thing is that they are human beings, and as human beings I have to respect them.
The problem is that we have difficulty to accept the Different even within our own religion. A Christian will say “I cannot accept him because I am from the Khouri family and he is from the Peter family”. And the Moslem will say the same thing. And the Jews will say the same thing. So the reconciliation which we can achieve through the dialogue is the only way. History is full of lessons to prove this. We have to learn from history; not from ancient history but from modern history. Take the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. How many years they were in war, in conflict. And in the end they knew that there is no alternative, they have to sit together because they need this, and they are doing it with all the difficulties as you know. But I have hope.
And the Youth Exchange problem of the Rotarians is very important, because it is a unique way to meet the others and to understand them. It will help to enrich each others culture and recognize each others tradition and religion and so on. I have a lot of things to say as I told you, the problem is the language, but I don’t agree that the language will be my handicap. If I feel that I suffer from this handicap I need to go to the psychologist for therapy and that would not be good.
Sometimes we have the good will to meet each other to solve a conflict but cannot reach a good solution so we might need mediation from another person to make a dialogue possible. Especially if it is a serious situation where you only have either conflict or you have to abandon your own home or place. So the only way, the positive way is to have the dialogue, and if we do not have mediation from another person how can we ever find a solution by ourselves.
So this is the importance of your problem, because you have to be mediators in this society. As I feel the responsibility to be a mediator in my society. Because mediation is not only a model thing, a good style now because it began in the United States fifteen years ago, and we have it also as a program in our schools in Israel. No, because mediation existed since the beginning of humanity.
So when you are building your program as the YE officers, as a club, or planning an activity, you have to take to take into consideration the educational aspects. You have to see if your program is useful and effective, or just useful. And when you finish your meetings here in a few days, don’t forget that this is only the beginning and this is not the end. You have a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, the same way as I feel it personally. Thank you.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz:
I think everybody is already a little tired from listening, so I shall make my speech very short, then we can have a discussion afterward. I want to tell you a story about youth. I was married in the United States and I have a son. My first wife is Christian, American – Christian. The mother wanted to take my son to the church. Every time she asked him to go to the church he asked, “Why Dad doesn’t go with us?” She said, “He’s a Moslem”. So he told her, “I’m a Moslem too” therefore he doesn’t want to go to church. When he grew up and he asked me, “Dad, what should I be? My mother tells me I have to be Christian and you are a Moslem. What should I have to be”? I said, “Religion is not what you want to be, it’s what you believe, what you feel inside of your heart. Because we are all born in a family, which may be Moslem or Christian or Jewish, so the children adopt the religion of the family. And some of them understand it, and some of them don’t. So I told my son to read about the three religious and to choose himself a religion. He’s is twenty-two now. One day he came to me and he said, “Dad, I have one question. Every time I talk to another person from a different religion I feel the hostility about the other religion. So I’m having a problem to decide which religion I want to choose, to be a Christian or Moslem, or a Jew or even a Buddhist”. I asked “What do you believe”? He answered “I’ll tell you what. All religions fight for their faith. I want to belong to the Moslem-Christian-Jewish religion. I want to start my own religion”.
These are the problems the youth have. They see each other, they like to play with each other, but they ask – what he is. Oh, he is a Jew, can I play with him? He is a Christian, can I play with him? These are the fences we put between our children, and isolate them from one another. It is very difficult for a child to understand the difference between the religions, so he has to ask his parents: - should we do this? can we do that? The education of the children is in the parents’ hands and the parents have the full responsibility how the kid will act. So to teach our children to accept the other religions is very important. When my son asked me, which religion I do prefer, I said “All religions, because we all submit to God”. Now do you think if a Christian and a Jew and a Moslem stay in one room and pray, God will say, “No, no, no I’m not going to accept your prayers, each one has a different religion”. It is not imaginable. God sent the messengers Moses and Jesus and the prophet Mohammed to the human people to teach them and educate them how to submit to God, how to worship God, how to understand God, not how to fight each other.
So if we are really a good believing person, and good educators, we have to start with ourselves and with our children. Stop that isolation, stop the fences between the religions. In Islam, God said in the Holy Koran, you have to believe in God, His angel, His book, His messengers equally. So I have to believe in Moses, much as I believe in Mohammed.
I have to believe in Jesus, much as I believe in Mohammed. I have to believe in the Bible and the Torah and the Koran equally. These are the words of God. We did not write these books, God sent them to us, to educate us. So these books are precious. Now if I see a Bible on the ground, and somebody wants to step on it, I have to prevent it because I admire that Bible as I admire the Koran. I don’t say, “This is a Bible, it’s not from my religion, they can step on it and walk over it”. This is the word of God. If there is a word of God neglected we all have to protect that word, regardless of where it comes from – from Judaism, from Christianity or from Islam. We have to start to build our religion on the faith of believing God, not making borders between what someone else believes and what I believe.
I hope everybody asks himself this question: On Judgement Day, Do you think there will be a banner that says Christian, Jew and Moslem? I don’t think so. There will be good people and bad people; Good people and evil people. When we talk about evil, everybody has evil within himself. But if we let that evil control our life, then we will become a bad person. But if we get the goodness to control our life, we will become good people. So we have to nourish that goodness by understanding each other, feel about religion as a way to reach God, not a way to fight each other.
In this panel we are talking about the young people. And I think that if everybody teaches youth and the young generation how we can love each other without rancor, without hate, then we will have peace. But as long as they sign the papers at the Camp David and our children have no feeling for that piece of paper that has been signed, peace will never be accomplished. So we have to start the peace signed in our heart, with our children, in our home, before we start signing peace on a paper when the people in the street don’t even know what that paper says. So to start having peace, we need to have it within ourselves, with our children, at home. Make them believe that we are living in this world for love, not for hate and fight.
I have a lot of friends – Christians, Jews and Moslems come to my house, and my son sees them as friends. He doesn’t look at their denomination, he doesn’t look at them as being from a different faith. He sees them as a friend coming to my house. So we teach our children to accept our friends without looking at the name of their religion or at their language or their tradition. So this is the message for the youth I relay to you, and you have to spread that word. I can’t reach all the youth you see, but I think you can reach all the youth you work with. Thank you very much for this opportunity and thanks to everybody who deals with the issue, and we want to thank the mayor for being with us and giving us the support. I think it’s wonderful to have somebody from the city of Nazareth here at our meeting and support our aims and educational purpose. Thank you very much again.
Moderator Werner Keller:
Now I ask you for your contributions. And maybe you have some questions. And afterwards we shall continue it in the workshops.
Vittorio Amigoni of the Rotary Club of Merate in Italy:
Thank you very much for your nice words and your nice speeches. I am Catholic like ninety per cent of the Italians. I try to educate my children to be very friendly with everybody. They had a Catholic education until eighteen, then they went to the United States in Colorado, to study – my daughter graduated in philosophy and my son in aerospace engineering. When we talk about religion they do not like to touch that subject, because they are very, very confused. I had asked them to participate in all the Italian programs of youth exchange. They did the family exchange, the camps, they spent a year abroad, and they had the opportunity to visit different kinds of families, observe different kinds of religions. And I think that is the reason why they are confused. That is my comment. I feel very frustrated and confused after all your speeches. Because we are Italian, we are trying to exchange our children, because I am sure that is the best way to create a new world with peace and with a good life for everybody. And so the children have to visit every different type of family, every different type of culture, without any prejudice about color, religion, and language. But we are still after a thousand years confronted by the division created by the religions. I feel that to reconcile them is a mission impossible. Because our counterpart is not our soul. Our counterpart is you. If after a thousand years you have created a division, what can I say to my children? That you have to love a black, a yellow, a red skin? When they look at history they can see that all the Americans today killed the native Americans. One continent has disappeared from the heart, with a cross, with a religion. The churches justify to themselves that they are allowed to kill the people. Now you say that when you turn to the people you have to love them. Of course the children are confused. I am confused. But still I am very optimistic and we will win.
Father Khouri:
Thank you. First of all, to be confused is not such a tragic thing, because usually we are confused when we have no clear situation, or when the issues are not so clear and we have a lack of information. So with more information we will be less confused.
The second point is that the religion is not the problem. Religion has not divided us. The leaders of the religion, the institutionalization of the religion divided us and the society. The religion is okay. But who are the leaders. The leaders are human being as you and as me, and there is no perfect man. So in the Church we had a lot of wrong developments, and in Islam the same thing, in Judaism the same thing. Because the nature of the religion is good, it’s from God, and God –
I don’t know if you agree with me or not – cannot do wrong deeds. But man can interpret it or translate it in a bad way. So the religion is okay, the leaders are not okay.
Rabbi Michael:
I’d like to make two points, briefly, to Vittorio. Number one, we have a prayer in our tradition. It says, blessed are You O God, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. Two thousand years ago, the rabbis asked, in Jesus’s time, “Why does the prayer repeat all the time. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. It’s the same God. Yes the rabbi said, it’s the same God but Abraham had his understanding of what God was and what God wanted, Isaac had a different understanding of who God was and what God demanded, and Jacob had yet another understanding. And it doesn’t mean they contradict, or even if they do contradict it’s okay. Because the understanding of God and what God wants of us is a dynamic. It changes. It has to change, cause we change. Change is an eternal reality of life.
If you don’t change you die. You have to change. Growth, life, it’s all change. I wouldn’t say that I look back in history and I say “O it’s terrible, look, they killed for religion, and they manipulated for religion and they deceived and cheated and all in the name of religion. Well, you know Vittorio, before the French Revolution, there wasn’t anything else but religion. it’s only two hundred years since we have an understanding that you can separate religion from everything else in life. And that’s two hundred years when you look in human history and see the role of religion as George says “the institutionalization of religion”. So that has to be said. The other thing that has to be said in regard to youth exchange is my own personal experience in inter-religious dialogue, which is, I have become a better Jew because of inter-religious dialogue. I have become a more self-understanding Jew because I have had to explain myself and my faith to my brothers who don’t understand Judaism. So I have had to be clearer, more self-definitive, more exacting about what I believe and what is my faith. And sometimes my brothers and my sisters, they ask me questions I don’t know the answer to , so I have to go back to my faith and ask, I have to go back to my tradition and ask. That’s why I think youth exchange is an extraordinary opportunity. I wish I had done it.
Werner Keller:
Let us see the problem from the practical point of view which is the task of our conference. We are putting so much energy in preparing the visa, insurance, doctors’ certificates and all other technicalities, but we do not have the time, or do not take the time, to help these young people to be aware of where we are sending them and what it means. There is not only a culture shock when a boy from Taiwan will be sent to Finland, or Finnish girl will be sent into an Arab family, to Nazareth. There is more to it.
We have to make an effort to be aware of the educational implications. If there is a lack of information given, it is a lack of doing our educational work. As I said we are sending out young people and take care to give them proper food, good hospitality and take them to the disco and give them the chance to get to know nice people. But we also have to be aware that there is something else happening, a learning process, something happening in the hearts of these young people. We have to help them to cope with these challenges. The confusion which might arise comes from a lack of information, and we should give them the information. That’s why we are here to find a better way to do this. we shall try to do our best in the workshop also, to share our experiences on these issues.
Diane Styger from South Africa:
I haven’t come with a question. I just actually would like to just share some issues that we’ve covered this morning. I was brought up in the Church of England, I originally come from the United Kingdom. I got married in the Church of Wales, and I married a Catholic. I didn’t come from a particularly religious background, I just always had the calling that I wanted to go to church from a very young age, and that’s what I did. When my children came to school-going age, it was the tradition in my husband’s family to attend a particular school, which happened to be a Catholic school. I didn’t have a problem with that. So when it came to deciding on a school, father had made up his mind because of the tradition that the children were going to a Catholic school. So my son went to a day school for Catholics, and my daughter went to the convent. And they grew up very, very staunch Catholics, and myself having grown up in the Church of England, obviously our religions were very, very different. And we got into heated debates about such questions why does one have to go to confession, because as far as I’m concerned in my church you have an open line of communication to God Himself. And I think that what I wanted to share with you is. I’m very, very lucky in having a very close family. My children and I, we all have our different viewpoints, we all have our ideologies, and through all of that we’ve been able to overcome our differences, respect each other’s differences. I don’t need to go to confession, my children need to go to confession.
But what all the religions have in common is the tolerance. The common goal of us being here I believe is not to concern ourselves with religion, because religious traditions are often man-made. At the end of the day God wants us to be a good example to one another, He doesn’t want us to judge one another. I think that’s written in the Koran, I think it’s written in the Bible and so at the end of the day, in conclusion, with all these facets of religion in my life, I don’t like to say I have a religion. I go to a specific church, so I’m put in the category of belonging to a certain religion. But at the end of the day I think we are o.k. as long as we follow the basic rules of what God’s purpose is for us. If a youth exchange student needs to go to confession, take them to confession. If they need to rest and have Shabbat on a Saturday, let them, respect them. I believe what it is all about is just respecting, understanding, and letting everybody express their spiritual need freely.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz:
It wasn’t a question but I would like to comment on that issue. Always the children look at other children’s religion and say, why do they have that, and why don’t we have that. Like my kids, they say, “Dad, why don’t we have a Christmas tree on Christmas”? Or “why we don’t have a Christmas tree on our holidays”? That’s why, I have good friends that are Christian, and we celebrate Christmas with them. But still the children are making an issue, why the others have that in their religion and we don’t have that. The way to explain to children, that religion is from God. It’s not the act of the people. You have to see God with your heart, not with your eyes. You have to understand there is a God, He created us, He made us what we are. So for that we have to appreciate Him and be religious.
When you say religious that means you are obliged to thank God, obey His order. It’s like, if you are in my house, you should follow my rule. You go to a different country, they tell you have to follow the law of that country. When God created us and gave us this life, He gave us a law to protect ourselves from ourselves. So to not mis-use the religion, you have to see God with your heart.
And if you have any question, read about the three religions. You’ll find out there is ninety per cent similarity in the three religions. There are only ten percent basic differences. Everybody focuses on the ten per cent and forgets the ninety per cent similarity.
In all other important matters people focus on the majority consensus expect in religion. Here the focus is on the ten per cent difference. So for our children it is very important to get to know and study the other religions. Tell them God sent these three books for the human being to understand how to reach God. If God wanted to have one religion, He could have sent one religion for all nations and that’s it. But God has purpose. He sent three religions, to educate the people how to worship God and how to understand God. But that does not mean these are three ways that are going separately. They are joining each other in one God. As I said, if three of us sat and prayed here, God would not say, “I’m not going to accept your prayer because you are sitting amongst other religions”
Prayer for God is what comes from the heart. God does not look at the language, God doesn’t look at the place, Gods looks at your heart and your actions. So if your action is good and your heart is full with love, this means you’re a good worshipper. So try to teach our children, as I said before, how to love God and to accept His creatures. So if there is a different way to reach God, respect that and tell them that’s also a right way, as I told my son. I said, “You learn, and you educate yourself. I’m not going to impose Islam on you. I’m not going to let your mother impose Christianity on you. You study these three religions and you try to decide for yourself what you want to follow”. And he was joking with me and said: “I want to be a Buddhist”. I said, “Fine, this is your decision. This is what you are going to face God with, not me. I’m not going to be the judge on Judgement Day. God is going to be judging you. So you try to feel you are doing the right thing to face God on Judgement Day”. I think this will also give you a little bit of help to discuss the different religions with your children.
Niels Peter Schmidt, Danmark:
I have a couple of times volunteered in Guatemala, in a small village on the slopes around Santa Thomas. I’m a Protestant, and I don’t know very much about religion. But I can tell you in this tiny little village in Guatemala, four thousand people living on a slope, there are more than fifty different kinds of religions. I never ever imagined there could be so many, many different kinds of religions. There were no Moslems, there were no Jews there. But there were Christians; about sixty different Christian churches. And my short question to the panel is, when religion becomes a business, what can we do about that?
Rabbi Michael: We are having a hard time understanding your question, because it wasn’t clear to us exactly how do you define religion as a business. What is the context in which you say that it’s a business, and what do you want us exactly to respond to?
Niels:
I think religion is a business. If the priest, of whatever church it would be, gets six quetzales from his motherchurch for every person coming to his church, I call it business. Because they just want to get their own people into their own churches. And when you have four thousand people divided you have maybe fifty, sixty people in a church. I say it’s a business when the priest wants to get the customers in his church.
Rabbi Michael:
There’s no room for inter-faith dialogue there I agree.
Werner:
I just want to emphasize the fact that we are discussing religious education within Rotary Youth Exchange and not the bad experiences. We want to learn the good stories and the good language. In year exchange the young people are sent out to learn a new language, and we were always very happy to hear that for example a Portuguese girl came to Finland to learn it without being brought up in that country. But the point is we send the youth out to learn languages and forget to teach them the language of the heart. I know people near my home who are all speaking the same dialect. They come from the same village. But they do not understand each other in anything they say. And this is the point; we have to teach them the language of heart, the language of understanding and reconciliation. What is the use of sending them to learn English, or Massachusetts English, or Californian American or whatever? We have to teach them to accept and appreciate the plenitude of languages, the plenitude of the English language, the plenitude of the Arabic language. And then we have to add all the languages of heart and they too should be accepted. And this is the point I think we have to discuss.
Peter Kroen
I think the main problem of our religions is that each one claims to have the absolute truth. Everyone says – we are right – maybe the other one has a bit of the truth also, but the whole truth only we have. This is the main problem. And I think the problem will not go away even if we say: it’s all relative, all religions are the same, it’s the same if you are this or this or this. So if I was born as a Christian, you were born as a Jew, and you as a Moslem and each one of us studies his religion and then becomes convinced that he is on the right way. The only thing we can do is, we can respect the other one, and accept that he is not worse having another belief. That is what I meant when I said we have to grant a friend or a people with another belief as having the same intelligence and the same good will. He is not worse and he is not less intelligent. But for me this is my way, and this is your way. But I don’t think that we solve the problem when we give relativism to all religions. I think this is not the answer.
Werner Keller:
This is a wonderful question to ask the panel members, because we have to finish the panel discussion as the final contribution, and then we can continue in the workshops.
This is the moment I have to ask Father George to give our appreciation and reverence to your Bishop, allowing you to be with us this morning.
Father George:
First of all let me give him a short answer. It’s very complicated, it’s not easy. But usually we have to divide or separate the history of the religion from the doctrine of the religion. Because both of them are completely different things. The doctrine is okay, there is no problem. Sometimes we have difficulties of interpretation and it depends often on the history and the situation where we are. Because if we speak about Christianity, for example the interpretation, the theological interpretation of Genesis is not as it was twenty or thirty years ago. And the theology of the revelation it’s different in Europe, in Latin America, from the European theology. This would need another whole day to explain.
But let me now forget a little bit this, and to tell you that I was very, very happy to be with you. I am sorry I cannot be with you in the workshop, because I have truly to be with my Archbishop and with my brothers the priests in Haifa. I wish you all the best. I am sure that you have the good responsibility to continue your message and to continue your daily life the way in which we are called to go. And don’t forget that religion is not the goal, religion is the way to achieve the goals, and it’s very important. Thank you.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz:
The final message; God is one, we are His creatures. We have to do what is right to please God, not ourselves and not our president and not our bosses. So if everybody tried to please God before anything else we can have a better world. God said if you fill your heart with God there is no room for the evil to live in your heart. So I would like to ask everybody to do one thing, you don’t have to but I would like you to. God gives us this life and provides us with all the things we have in this life. Just before you go to sleep thank God for what He gave you, and be really sincere about your thanks, because we don’t thank enough for what He gave us. If God takes only one thing out of our life which is the air, we’ll have no where to live. So we thank God before we go to bed every night at least a thousand times, but this is up to you. If you thank God enough, God will see that you appreciate what He gave you. He will take care of you, and He always takes care of us even without thanking Him, so imagine if we thank Him.
Rabbi:
Peter, to your question. I want to answer it in two ways. Number one: I am as certain about the absolute veracity of Judaism as I am about the absolute veracity of speaking English. I don’t speak English because it’s the right language; I speak English because that is what I inherited. I grew up in a society that spoke English, I speak English. Now I live in a Hebrew-speaking society, I speak Hebrew. I don’t say that I am a Jew because I believe it’s the absolute right thing. It is a way, like you said, and like George said. It’s a religion, it’s a way of seeing the world. Let me respond in a concluding kind of way to what you said about, not the relativity of religion, but rather the self-respecting truth that every religion has to offer. And in this I want to use a metaphor from the Bible. Our Bible. God’s Bible. I had a colleague who used to give out Bibles for confirmation, and he used to write in it, “By compliments of the author”.
As a matter of fact, Vittorio, I took my boys to Rome last month, and we went to the St. Peter in Chains Church, in Rome, with the magnificent Michelangelo Moses sitting there with the tablets. So my concluding remarks focus on this moment. I don’t know if you know which moment Michelangelo chose to freeze in that sculpture, but it happens to be when Moses comes down from the mount with the two tablets of the Law, and he is gazing at his people defiling themselves with a golden calf. Now, if you know this moment, it’s a decisive moment in the history of my faith. Because here you have Moses up on the mountain receiving God’s word from God, it says in our Bible, written in God’s finger. It was written by God. And here God says to Moses, “Moses, we can’t go on, we have to stop. Your people have defiled themselves”. So Moses says, “What do you mean my people’, they used to be your people. What happened”? So God says, “Well, you know what, I’m going to destroy this people”. I’m quoting from Exodus XXXⅡ. “I’m going to destroy this people, and I’ll give you another people, and you will take that people up to the land that I will give you”. So Moses says to God, and allow me to paraphrase, “Are you crazy? Do you know what it’s going to read on the front page of the Pharaoh Times, Egyptian Times, tomorrow morning? It’s going to say ’God saves people from Egyptian bondage, and kills them in the desert”. Moses says, “This is not good PR for You. You shouldn’t do this”. So God thinks twice, which is problematic for some of us, God thinks twice and says, “You know you’re right. That’s not a good idea”. So Moses then feels the closeness of God and feels that God is responding to him, so he feels that he has God where he wants him, so to speak. So he says to God, “If I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, show me your goodness”. That’s the text. If I have found favor in your sight, which means if you really like me, you’ll show me who You are. Because he’s never seen God, he’s spoken to God. He has never seen God face to face. No one can see God, right. So God says to him, “You think you have me where you want me”. So God says to him, “No human being may see Me and live”. That’s what God says. “Don’t think that you are any different than any other flesh and blood person in the world. No one may see Me and live. I’m too powerful. I’m too much more than you. I will overpower you”
To me this is an extraordinary opportunity for us to understand exactly what the Bible means when it says GOD. No one human being may know God and live. But that doesn’t deny each and every one of us from making a statement about God, and who God is, and who God is in our lives. And for that, - and this is how I respond to you, Peter, - every one of us has an understanding of God, or Godliness, or Holiness, or the meaning of life. Whatever you want to call it. And when we put those understandings together then we have a much broader understanding, a much greater appreciation of who God is and what life means. And I think that’s the goal of our meeting today, and of every interfaith meeting, and of your youth exchange, and I really pray that this is what you go away with today. God bless you.
Werner:
A few days ago I quoted a short Hebrew sentence out of the Jewish prayers in a discussion. This is an expression which gives me a lot of energy always. That even in times we do not have very much hope for peace or have other troubles we say the word from the Jewish prayers:
That means – “Hope is not lost yet”
This is what we want to do, not to give up our hope. We have a big message in Rotary. Read the Rotary sentence which expresses what Rotary is, “To foster international understanding and good will, and truth and understanding and friendship”. These are empty words without our energy, without the language of heart. So we even need the language of heart to understand the message of Rotary International.
I have prepared a paper (see end of report) which you may want to discuss and accept in the workshops, or you may want to discuss you own issues. We thank you for listening, we thank all the panel members for being here. It was a big pleasure and a very moving experience this morning.
WORKSHOP REPORTS
HOW TO APPLY THE CONFERENCE THEME IN YE PROGRAMS TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF THE PROGRAMS
Long Term Exchange
Moderator Brynjulf Sjolshagen, Norway
Panelists: Otacilio Araujo, Brazil
Sven Hjalmarsson, Sweden
Recorder: Svein Line, Norway
After introducing the panelists Brynjulf Sjoelshagen read the explanations that had been the basis for the moderator and panelists preparation for this workshop:
“We think that in all the YE programs more activities should be incorporated to bring the quality of the program on a higher level than a cheap holiday”.
This criticism is one of the reasons for a decreasing interest in the Rotary clubs to support our programs.
Besides introducing this year’s theme into the program there are more subjects of interest: local, national, international which could be added to the activities.
We hope that you can make a list of suggestions here to help all of us to improve the program to further our ideals.
Sven Hjalmarsson mentions that we have a good program but everything can always be better.
We have the student in the middle and there areas around him/her.
1 The host family
2 The school
3 The host club
The selection of these? Can we do things better here?
Then he focuses on the student. The most important is that we find students that are really motivated. This is also very important for the cooperation between the districts. We have to improve the selection of the students to find the best ones.
Students with a medical history could be problematic. Is the medical examination always thorough enough? What to do if a student with Anorexia arrives.
Learning the language! Sven suggest that language introduction courses should become compulsory for students in Rotary Year Exchange going to a host country whose language they do not know at all. This should be written into the agreements that we sign between the host and sending districts concerning the exchange students. He believes that such language courses would contribute to higher quality for the RYE program.
Otacilio Araujo talks about the importance of the dialogue between the student and the Youth Exchange Officer. The most important thing is to get clear cut answers be it positive or negative. This can improve not only the program but also Rotary International.
A representative from Austria says that we have a marvelous program. It is of major importance to prepare the students well before leaving for an unknown country. He also points out the importance of the questionnaire.
The moderator inquires how we prepare the students before they for their host country.
A delegate from Minnesota, USA tells us that they had a good program dealing with most of the problems the students may encounter in new country. Nevertheless many students from their district returned home too early because of depression.
As time was shorter for the workshop as originally planned no conclusions could be made.
Short Term / Family to Family
Exchange
Moderator & Recorder: Carolina Piamenta, Brazil
Panelists: Bjarne Andersson, Denmark
Sergio Carneiro, Brazil
Seppo Huotari, Finland
To put the quality of the program on a higher level there should be more emphasis on the cultural content.
Better preparation for the culture the young people are going to meet at their destination.
Questionnaire- a suggestion for the future exchange students
Long Term / Short-Term students are sometimes forced to go to the church of the host parents even when it is not the religion of the student. However this can also be a cultural experience and a social function as well. The student should follow the family rule but the family should also enable the student to go to a house of worship of their own religion.
Parents & students should be properly interviewed and should get good orientation sessions. Following the exchange a presentation and & or a report should be made.
We are still searching for the best framework for Short-term exchange.
Summer Camps
Moderator & Recorder: Danielle Balthus-Demoulin, Belgium
Panelists: Yrjo Helanen, Finland
WalterWyser, Switzerland
Richard Tayer, Canada
The workshop began with the introduction of the panelists.
Richard Taylor explained how youngsters who take part in the wilderness camp have time in the evening, while sitting around a campfire, to discuss more serious matters.
Walter Wyser talked about the Swiss bike tour. All students are equal, they all have to make an effort to reach their goal and there are no barriers anymore.
Yrjo (called George) told us that living in Israel (as a UN officer) had a major impact on his understanding of other religions and cultures. Young people who participate in camps have this unique opportunity to become friends and to realize that a difference in culture and religion is not a barrier.
Danielle explained how roundtrips or camps are organized in Belgium. Because they do not have much time to adapt to each other, the students must have a good orientation before coming. Tolerance and respect of the other are absolutely necessary for the success of the roundtrip.
The word was given to the floor and many Rotarians wanted to share their experiences. Most of them reported positive experiences. Good ideas were expressed and the conclusion of this very short workshop was that even though the summer camps are of very short duration, they can and do have some impact on the participants.
Plenary Session Ⅱ
PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS TO INTEGRATE PHYSICALLY DISABLED YOUNG PEOPLE IN ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE PROGRAMS
Presented by Jean-Claude Penicaud,
France
Panelists: Karel Buitinga, The Netherlands
Thorkild Brunsborg, Denmark
Kaya Turham, Turkey
Dear Friends,
All my professional life was concerned with Human Relations and this brought me to the theme of this session as well as my involvement with Youth Exchange since 1992. Presently I am Vice President of this conference until 2002.
After my introduction the panelists will share with you their own experiences and ideas as well as some examples of organize the integration. Later the working groups will think about the possibilities and means to organize the integration. Each group will try to define the best way how to reach that goal to let the physically challenged (either by handicap or by a chronic illness) participate in each of the YE programs.
The following points should be considered by the workshops:
1 Discuss the reasons that an application presented by a disabled youngster is seldom accepted by the clubs and by the hosting families.
Why such an attitude? I have got the feeling that there are many, sometimes questionable reasons which explain this situation. Among the most important ones we can mention:
The apprehension in facing a physically different person (how many times have I seen healthy people refusing to meet those who are handicapped or seriously ill).
The refusal to have problems in our daily life with a person who does not conform to our standards and to accept the need to devote more time to a physically diminished student than to a healthy one.
The individualism which nowadays governs our Society and which leads us to focus more on our own interests than on interests of society in general.
The lack of suitable infrastructures for hosting, schooling etc.
The lack of awareness that to SERVE means mostly to overcome difficulties.
Many other reasons could be added but it is important to keep in mind that a certain antagonism exists in our society towards the disadvantaged people in general and the physically disabled in particular. We will always have to fight against this to prove that a physically diminished person is not inferior. We should find the suitable solutions for YE in each case.
If we want be successful and I am confident that we shall be, we will find the solutions.
2 Define who are the physically challenged persons who could be accepted as part of the program (the list which shall be established could be published on behalf of the EEMA and sent to all the districts).
It is necessary to distinguish between two categories of physically challenged persons:
-those who have a chronic disease (not contagious of course).
-those who have a handicap which requires special arrangements for their living.
2.1 Chronic diseases:
Making a complete list of the diseases is difficult, but we can think of the ones which with suitable medical treatment and medication can be held in check to allow those afflicted to live normally or nearly so: allergies, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, hemophilia, obesity and even in some cases neurological problems, etc. In these cases only medical supervision as well as the supervision by the host families, schools and host clubs (with the help of their members from the medical profession) is needed.
2.2 Handicaps:
Of course the problem remains with the young people who have to use a wheelchair but also with those who are blind, amblyopic (with very low vision), dumb, deaf, etc
In these cases it is absolutely necessary, in addition to the medical treatment, to find the appropriate arrangements to help them (but is it really impossible to cope with a number of these problems when many countries have legislation in this field?).
3 To raise the question openly: as Rotarians are we allowed to do nothing, are
we allowed to stand on the side and not help that these young persons should not suffer any kind of segregation?
We should not forget that in general people who suffer from a chronic illness or are handicapped are eager to be considered as capable and normal as a healthy person.
We have the means to overcome the resistance, to find the most suitable solutions and to allow these youths to fulfill a dream, then why do we do not act?
Now before letting the panelists speak for themselves I should like to give two examples of what happened in my district this year:
This first one regards a young blind girl who had applied for a long term exchange with the USA. Her application was fully supported by her family, her sponsoring club, the Chairman and all the Youth Exchange Committee
of the district with the same will: to succeed.
This young girl went to the highschool like the other girls in her town and was, thanks to a computer specially adapted to Braille, totally autonomous to study and to communicate.
She was also able to manage by herself alone at home.
To effect an exchange it was necessary to find a hosting district ready to take care of her. Requests had been sent to several US districts. I must add that thanks to the RI Pre-Conventions and to the EEMA Conferences I personally know a lot of the chairmen. After numerous exchanges of inquiries she was accepted by D 7770 (South Carolina). The most important preparation for the exchange was to find a hosting club, the hosting families and a school.
To-day this young girl is in South Carolina where she has begun to go to school and to attend some Rotarian meetings. All indicates that this exchange will be successful.
I must admit that the reaction of this student when I called her to tell her that she was accepted in a US district was for me one of the most exciting moments I have ever had since I have been active in Youth Exchange. The fact that I had been involved in the fulfillment of her dream showed me how important my action had been.
The second example concerns the application of a young American girl who, after having been accepted by her district’s YEC, was rejected by the hosting club and the hosting family because of her unusual weight as compared with the weight of a young French girl the same age. Convincing the club and the hosting family was not an easy task, but why reject such application when the girl lived normally in her own country and that the confidence in her motivation had been confirmed by the US chairman.
This example has shown me that what it is considered a handicap in one country (my country) is not necessarily one in another country. It also persuaded me that we must not to be discouraged by the first reactions and continue to try to convince people instead.
Now let the panelists express their views and opinions on the matter and give you an account of their own experiences.
Karel Buitinga:
President Richard, fellow Rotarians, sometimes as a person you realize that you suffered from a so-called blind spot quite a while. This can make you feel a little ashamed. This happened to me last April, when Ans, my wife, and I met Ada and Richard Buss during our meeting of the Rotary Caravan Club. During the meetings we talked about our lives, our work, our backgrounds in Rotary, and of course our experiences in Rotary Youth Exchange programs. And Richard informed us about the topic of today inclusion of students with physical limitations in all the programs”. And in a flash I discovered my blind spot, and I will tell you about it. And you will understand why I am standing here. Not long after I was born in ’43, it turned out that there was something wrong with my body. Without reason I started to hemorrhage in my knees, elbows, ankles, kidneys, in my muscles and arms and legs. And there was not much to do about it during the forties and the fifties than to wait until it finally stopped or a blood transfusion when I had lost too much blood. The diagnosis was that I have hemophilia, type A, severe, with a clotting factor 8 which is less than one per cent. I spent much time in bed, at home and in hospital. Besides reading, and using my imagination how it could be different and experimenting with what I could do about my pain, I learned, with the support of my parents, a few good friends, and a farmer who had suffered from polio during his children and who allowed me to help him on his little farm, step, by step, first to manipulate and finally to stop, my bleedings. Ans and I met at the teacher training college, when I was nineteen years old. Ans was seventeen. After graduation in ’67, we married and after ’69 we became the parents of two healthy boys.
The first nine years of my professional life I worked as a special teacher for children with learning difficulties. Besides my regular work I did voluntary work as a riding instructor at the Kobert Foundation, horseback riding for the so-called handicapped. As a matter of fact, I am one of the founders of this club, which is still running with volunteers. The two Rotary clubs in Hengelo, the city where we lived, sponsored this work. As a community service project, Rotarians built a new stable for our four horses. I spoke to several Rotary clubs about the benefits of this activity for disabled children.
One evening I got a phone call from Rotarian Klaus Houter from the Hengelo Rotary Club, who told me that his club would like to sponsor me for a Teacher of the Handicapped award. I received the award and was able to study for one year at the University of Miami. I took courses in child and youth psychiatry, neurology, counseling and special education. With our family of four, we lived on the campus. In my host club, The Miami Downtown Rotary Club, I was treated as a member and I addressed many clubs in the religion about my work in The Netherlands as an unofficial ambassador of good will.
During one of my sessions with my supervisor he asked me about the negative and positive effects of my hemophilia in my work. And I told him among other things how I had learned as a child and young man to use mental techniques to manipulate the effects of hemophilia. He, by the way, was the first person I ever told about this. And he introduced me to the work of the late, and how well-known psychiatrist, Milton H. Erikson. By extensively studying his work, I learned to understand how I had used mental techniques to manipulate my hemorrhaging during the first twenty years of my life. By means of using his hypno-therapy techniques I successeded even better to stop the very rare bleedings I had at that time. The past thirty-six years of my life I only needed three times medication to stop the hemorrhage. In all three cases I was out of balance as a person for several reasons.
Back in the Netherlands, I earned my doctoral degree in special education and counseling at State University Groningen and worked as a president of a residential setting for children and youngsters with pretty severe social and emotional problems. At that time I became a Rotarian. From ’81 I am working for Fontis University of Professional Education, The School for Special Education Needs, and am responsible for the education and training of special teachers and school counselors in our northern region. One of the main things in my work is integration of children with handicaps and difficulties in the normal school system, mainstreaming, as they say in the United States.
This is what in a flash went through my head, sitting in front of that caravan together with Ada and Richard, and I realized that however I had served in the Youth Exchange selection committee in our region, and however integration of children, students, with limitation is my daily work, it never had occurred to me that I, we, as Rotarians, have to take action to change the reality of today; that it is not normal that young people with limitations are not given their fair share in all parts of the Youth Exchange programs of Rotary. Many of them developed very special qualities and skills in dealing with their limitations and handicaps. The so-called normal world can benefit so much from what they learned.
One final remark about the strategy. And I hope that we will work this out during the workshop and in our districts. We must not wait until they come to us, we have to go and find them. Let’s create this awareness. Let’s take this action, as Frank Devlyn would say.
Thorkild Brunsborg
Fellow Rotarians. Thank you for letting me speak on this topic. And thank HIM making you able to hear what I say. As Jean-Claude has told you, I’m from Denmark. I’ve served as the Youth Exchange Officer for the Danish Rotary Youth Exchange Council, and I’ve been in charge for the short term program since 1995. In Denmark we have a tradition. We make a Handi-camp every third year. As Youth Exchange Officer I have naturally been busy helping with the latest two of these camps to get them going, but I’ve never actually been in charge of a Handi-camp. I have also a few times, and only a few times, tried to accept young people who were in some way disabled from other countries to some of our camps, our, should I say, “normal” summer camps. But it is not easy to make a Rotary Club accept physically disabled youngsters to what you might call a normal camp. I have also wondered why I get so few invitations from other countries, for young disabled Danes to go to ordinary camps. I get quite a few invitations for young Danes to go to Handi-camps abroad. But I very seldom get invitations for physically disabled persons to normal camps. That is in some way hard for me to comprehend, because in Denmark I work very often with an organization formed and organized by handicapped, the ones who suffer from muscular dystrophy. Quite a few of these youngsters, who suffer from that disease can, for a number of years at least, go to normal camps if some considerations are taken. But we get very few invitations to onto these young people.
As I told you, we have in Denmark a few experiences of hosting these young people in camps where they can join young people who function normally. It can, I tell you, I know, be a disaster. But it doesn’t have to. If you try to mix these two different worlds there are some very simple rules you have to remember. They are simple but you have to remember them. For one thing you never invite a physically handicapped person, or a disabled person, on his or her own. They must always be allowed to bring a helper. I’ll tell you a bit more about that in a minute. And then you never invite them to a camp where they have to climb stairs. It’s obvious, isn’t it? But I’ve heard people try to do it. And then you never force them, and this is important, it might be a key issue, you never force a physically disabled young person to do what they do not want to do. I return to that point in a minute. That is not all there is to do. But if you follow these three rules, you might prevent most of the possible disasters.
Concerning helpers, if you invite two young people from another country why not consider allowing the sending district to send a physically handicapped young man or woman and a helper. The helper is necessary at the airport, the train station, etc. Of course most of the young disabled persons want as much as anybody else to see the world. And with a little help from a helper they can cope with most any difficulty once they are eager enough, just like the rest of us. During a longer journey it is very natural that a helper comes in handy – climbing stairs, moving suitcases, and so forth. I am going to tell you about an experience we had in Denmark a couple of years ago. If you are very lonely, and maybe a bit ill from all this new food, and you are unable to use your own legs, then in the night it is very, very nice to be able to ask someone to help you to the bathroom in your own language.
Talking about stairs, of course camps are different. If you stay at Rotarian homes, there are bound to be some of the hosts who have their guests upstairs. This is of course very nice, but of course there are some other hosts who have their guests in houses without staircases. Remember to use these members to host the disabled. It is common sense I know, but it has not always been checked out before arrival. If your guests are in a wheelchair and stay at schools or dormitories or youth hostels, please make sure that the bathrooms, the toilets and the sinks are at the same floor and once again, at the same level as the person using the wheel chair. And do make sure that the doorways are wide enough. Have you seen these modern, motorized wheelchairs? They are wide, I tell you.
And then, about not forcing anyone to do anything. In Denmark we use young people who suffer from muscular dystrophy themselves to help plan the activities at our Handi –camps. They are the best advisors you can get. And I must admit I was a bit more than just surprised when I first learned what kind of activities these young people wanted for a camp. I could never have dared to ask a young girl in a wheelchair to join a race. But they did, and the campers loved it, most of them at least. But again, this is one of the places where I have learned – and not from doing things, but just being told by these young people – never try to persuade anyone who is in a wheelchair or in some other way physically disabled to do something they do not want to do. It might not be obvious to you why they don’t want to, and they might not even be able to tell you, but be sure they know themselves why – and some of them might have some experiences that force you to respect their decision. Some of them might be lazy too, but that is rarely the case.
Taking these three rules into consideration there should be no reason at all not to try to mix the physically disabled with all other young people, but of course you have to consider what kind of camp you are planning. And here is a hint for you. If it’s a musical camp, you’ll often find that the blind people have had much more music lessons than others. Actually very often they make friends with their not-disabled colleagues when they are playing music. I have had some very wonderful invitations to send young Danes to camps where they primarily try to paint or to produce other kinds of art. By the way, these are the kinds of camps I would like to join myself. And I know that quite a few of these young people with muscular dystrophy, at least for a number of years, like very much to do creative things.
My wife and I had a very wonderful experience a couple of years ago. We brought two young Lithuanians to a plane, a disabled boy who had brought his sister as a helper. It was a two-hour drive from the camp to the airfield. But all of the drive they kept clinging to plastic carrier bags. They would not let go of these bags, because in these bags they had some drawings that they had made themselves, and some masks they had made at the camp themselves. I do not know if these drawings were any good or considered as art, but they were marvelous when it came to bringing joy to the world of these two young Lithuanians
Please do not invite youngsters, - and now I’m going to say something obvious again – please do not invite disabled youngsters if you plan a mountain-climbing camp or soccer camp. The most popular camps in Denmark are the soccer camps, of course. But not even if you plan a golf camp
But the physically disabled can often use a computer as well as anyone else. They can play music, most of them, draw, act, mime or take part in cultural events or cultural discussions. It’s not easy to plan a Handi-camp, I know. And it’s not easy to carry it through. I know, I have tried. But it’s even harder to introduce a couple of disabled into a group of not disabled youngsters. But it can be done, and if you plan well it can be one of the most rewarding tasks Rotary can bring you; rewarding to the young people of course, but rewarding to the Rotarians as well. And I tell you, it’s a most worthwhile job to do. So, good luck.
Kaya Turhan
Fellow Rotarians, President Buss, Penicaud and all my Rotarian friends. I’ve been in Youth Exchange Long-Term exchange in my District 2420 Istanbul, Turkey for quite a long time. I had different experiences, however I never had direct experience of any handicapped or disabled students coming in. Anyway, thank you for inviting me as a panelist for this wonderful subject, which I believe has to be solved in one way or another. I have three points in particular that struck me as being relevant to the issue on integration of chronically ill and disabled children.
To be different is not to be bad or wrong, it’s just to be different. It is one thing that the exchange students learn during their time in their host countries. Through integration with chronically ill and/or disabled students, their healthier peers can learn that the differences imposed upon these children are not bad, just different. And it helps to teach them to look beyond the obvious differences to the inner similarities they share as young people. This can work both ways. A statement was made by a former exchange student who said: “Because of the Rotary Exchange Program I have learned that my personal boundaries are not limited by the boundaries of my country. I have learned to extend myself by learning a new language in a new culture foreign from mine”. One could hope such a statement could be made by a chronically ill or disabled student given the chance to participate in an exchange program which promotes integration. The last statement, which we all say and hear over and over again is: “This is an opportunity of a life time. You only do it once, once in your lifetime”. Most of the young people we speak of do not get this chance.
Chronically ill and disabled people are as international as Rotary itself, if not more so. There is not one country that does not have more than its share of the population who are denied through no fault of their own this once in a lifetime chance. This is discrimination.
As well as expanding the network of nations in the Rotary Youth Exchange Program, it may well be the time to explore avenues to expand the meaning of youth. This past year the inbound students came over to my house like they always do. The American and the Brazilian girl started signing in the international deaf alphabet to each other. Me and my wife were amazed at these two students, who come from opposite sides of the world and yet they spoke to a common language nobody could hear. Witnessing such a scene made me realize that integration into the Youth Exchange Program was not difficult at all.
So many different kinds of disabilities make it harder to find the solutions. Going into too many details of the different types of disabilities is not the right way of finding the solutions.
I believe first the program must be promoted, and with each student the solution will come along. It is just a matter of willingness to do the program by us, the Rotarians, where we have the greatest opportunities and strength. Thank you for listening to me.
WORKSHOP REPORTS
PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS TO INTEGRATE PHYSICALLY DISABLED YOUNG PEOPLE IN ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE PROGRAMS
Long Term Exchange
Moderator & Recorder: Jean-Marie Evers, Belgium
Panelists: Leandro Araujo, Brazil
Kaya Turhan, Turkey
Problems to solve: A Discrimination
B Practical Difficulties
A Discrimination
Rotary has to convince all organizers and participants in the YE programs that o disqualify and deny participation in an exchange because of chronic diseases (obesity, hemophilia, epilepsy, asthma etc.) or physical disability (deafness, blindness etc) is a DISCRIMINATION and cannot be accepted by Rotary.
B Difficulties
1 Chronic Diseases (diabetes, obesity, epilepsy, hemophilia, asthma…)
Most young people have learned to manage their own illness without great difficulty.
In the application from or in a special letter attached the information concerning the specific disease of the applicant, the medication, care, diet etc needed should be given. A list of the medications with their exact pharmaceutical names should be given.
2 Physically challenged exchange students with special needs (low vision, deafness….)
With the support and help of the host families and other people they can manage to have a normal exchange. It is necessary that the students give exact information on their special needs in the application form. This makes it easier for the accepting Rotary Club, host families and school to assist the student.
3 Physically challenged exchange students with very special needs
( students in wheelchairs, blindness…)
These applications need to be treated in a slightly different procedure. Before sending the application form to the YE chairman of the Rotary District one should first make an inquiry about the infrastructure suitable for the disabled in the country, city, school, home of destination. If all the facilities (or similar to the ones at home) are available and all the persons responsible for hosting the student agree to cooperate, the application can be sent. For most of these special students the selection of the host families will be different than for other exchange students.
C Suggestions
1 Application: for blind students in “Braille”. Application on videotape could be a very interesting solution.
2 Interview: for deaf youngsters with assistance of a translator from mother language.
3 Extra financial costs: to be discussed between sponsoring and hosting clubs.
All consequences and expenses of Medicare for the stay abroad during a whole year should be cleared before deciding on the exchange.
D Concluding:
Sending physically challenged young people on exchange is a matter that should be treated with a lot of care.
Failure can have disastrous consequences
Success can change a life forever.
Short term / Family to Family
Exchange
Moderator & Recorder: Niels Peter Schmidt, Denmark
Panelists: Juli Tall, Finland
Eric Marcus, USA
Karel Buitinga, The Netherlands
After the introduction of all the participants in this workshop the members of the panel opened the session by giving examples of different handicaps. We were talking about so called “minor” handicaps like diabetes, blindness, deafness, multiple sclerosis and other physically disabilities. Exchange of disabled students is not meant for extremely handicapped students who may attend the handicamps, but is aimed at those who were disqualified if for example diabetes etc was written on their application form.
What can we do to improve involvement of disabled people in Youth exchange? It is most important that we have procedure for the application of the disabled. It was emphasized that it could be a problem to find people for the exchange and most likely host families. But for example a family with a wheel chair user could easily exchange with another wheel chair user. It is also important to clarify the host families requirements from the disabled person.
The expenses of travel and aid were discussed. Who will fund the extra expenses of disabled persons on exchange? Many suggestions for club activities for fund raising were launched.
Suggestions to integrate the students in the program “New Generations”.
The question was raised if disabled students could be included in summer camps? From everybody in the workshop there was a positive response.
Ask the students what they require to accommodate them, let them chose/decide what camp they want to attend and integrate them with the other students. Handicaps need not be obvious/apparent, ask the receiving country for advice.
To summarize the conclusions of the workshop I would like to underline the following:
Be much more aware about the possibility to integrate disabled students in the exchange programs.
It is important to know how to assist with specific disabilities
Allow assistant/helper to travel with the student for the duration of the exchange.
Learn from the experience of the disabled students.
Let the disabled be integrated in the “New Generations Program”
Find practical solutions to integrate physically disabled young people in all parts of the YE programs.
BE AWARE OF THE BIG PREPARATIONS TO ACCOMPLISH AN EXCHANGE.
Summer Camps / Other Programs
Moderator: Thorkild Brunsborg, Denmark
Panelists: Pieter Beisterveld, The Netherland
Otto Langer, Austria
Trond Veierod, Norway
Recorder: Bill Sturgeon, USA
Panel Comments:
One tenth of the population is physically disabled
Conclusion:
There should be no prohibition to inclusion of persons, otherwise qualified, to Rotary Summer Camps by reason of physically handicap alone.
That being said, there are obvious conditions and lack of physical capabilities that would preclude acceptance into certain camps – just as they would for non-handicapped.
Obviously, certain conditions and procedures must be established to facilitate the inclusion of the handicapped into a camp.
First and foremost the boy or girl with the handicap must be open-minded and self-confident. Certainly the applicant must be aware and accepting of their limitations with and without a qualified companion.
The host family should be fully aware of, and tolerant of the ramifications of the camper’s handicap. Advanced communications between the host and camper is essential. The camper should inform the host family, in addition to the extent of his or her handicap, the needs for special equipment, medications and other information that will help the host family make the necessary arrangements.
Examples: if the camper uses a wheel chair or is otherwise unable to negotiate stairs, the camper’s accommodation should be on the ground floor, a ramp should be available where different levels must be negotiated and doorways wide enough, etc.
Implementation:
The following incremental implementation is recommended:
Solicit all camp coordinators to nominate any camps that can accommodate handicapped campers. Realizing, of course, the variety of handicaps and the agenda or activities of each camp dictate the ability to include those with handicaps. However, it is anticipated that at least two or three camps will be able to include willing young people in the summer of 2001. The Netherlands and Denmark have already volunteered.
It must be remembered that the inclusion of these young people with handicaps into the summer camps is not, in any way, meant to replace the regularly scheduled handicamps. The number of handicapped campers in each camp should remain at a level of one or two-depending on the number of attendees usually accepted.
Depending on the structure of the camp, the handicapped camper may be given the opportunity to decline to participate in certain activities.
This should be at the discretion of the camp coordinator and used sparingly; remembering that the reason for attending the camp is to participate in order to benefit from the sharing of the experiences with each other. If the prospective camper feels that he or she cannot participate in the majority of the events – they should choose a different camp.
A complete, detailed, agenda and descriptions of all planned activities should be delivered to the handicapped applicant as soon as possible. He or she and their immediate family are the best judges of the ability of the prospective attendees to cope with the exigencies of the camp.
Prior to, and no later than orientation, all camp attendees should be made aware of the inclusion of handicapped campers and offered the opportunity to assist in making the experience a memorable one for all of the campers.
REPORTS OF THE GENERAL WORKSHOPS
Long Term
HOW TO STOP THE DECREASE OF LONG TERM EXCHANGES
Moderator: Erwin Zeller, Austria
Panelist: Georges Braud, France
Jose Augusto Mariz de Mendonca Brazil
No report received
Short Term
HOW TO INCREASE EXCHANGES WITHIN EEMA
Moderator & Recorder Murat Celik, Turkey
Panelists: Jossi Blootrich, Israel
Sead Busovaca, Croatia
Asko Sastamoinen, Finland
With the formation of new states in Europe and the European Union there is more need than ever for the young generations in Europe to meet and to understand each other. There is cultural difference within the EU countries. The best way to understand and overcome this cultural differences is through Family to Family exchange within EEMA.
In order to develop and have a more effective and efficient Short Term Youth Exchange within EEMA the following points should be taken into consideration:
Organizational problems within the district should be solved. Multidistrict organization should be promoted
Application forms and programs should be sent early enough to give adequate time to the district to make its arrangements.
Sending families have a different mental attitude. They try to select countries. Marketing of a certain country to the families id important
Young people within EEMA should get to know each other and built friendships. This is also important for the future of a United Europe.
Camps are very important. Young people learn about each other much better in the camps.
The number of camps should be increased.
Camps should be planned in such a way that they are attractive to the young people.
Groups should be kept together.
Lowering the age group for the camps to 15 years may attract more young people.
Youth Exchange could work like matching grants. Support from Rotary International should be investigated.
Marketing is very important in Youth Exchange. A lot of districts are waiting for applications without showing any type of marketing effort.
Communication between districts should be in time and should include detailed information.
Internet is a fast and effective solution.
Camp invitations should be more informative.
Expectations of young people should be taken into consideration.
Motivation of the young people is very important.
Training of Youth Exchange Officers must be compulsory.
In Short Term Exchange there should be an attractive program.
Rotary should not act as a tourist agency.
Rotary ideals should become familiar to the young people within the program.
The program should be a training for the young people.
District Governors should give more emphasis to Youth Exchange.
Communication between Youth Exchange Officers should be increased.
World understanding and peace should be promoted in the camp.
Camps
BETTER STRUCTURING OF INVITATIONS AND APPLICATION FORMS
Moderator: Gerard Armbrust, The Netherlands
Panelists: Elisabeth Chassoux, France
Pavel Toman, Czech Rep.
Vreni Wyser, Switzerland
Recorder: Walter Wyser, Switzerland
First of all it was referred to the EEMA Conference in Portugal in 1996 regarding “Contents of a camp” and the recommendations that were issued. (Text available from Walter Wyser, YEP Switzerland!). In fact these recommendations are hardly followed by the inviting districts/multidistricts and an improvement is desired.
After a presentation and discussion how the handling of the administration at present is within EEMA the following recommendations/rules are set up:
- The invitations should be sent to the invited districts not later than end of February.
- Invitations should not only be sent by fax but an original should also be also be sent by mail or better by e-mail.
- The receipt of the invitation should be confirmed as an act of politeness (Use e-mail!)
- The appearance of the invitation should be attractive and Rotary like because it is passed on to clubs and applicants. (Good example US Camp California is presented!)
- The closing date for applications should not be later than end of April
- Early confirmation direct to the accepted candidate with copy for the sending district (Visa application and flight booking!).
- The applications (Short term form page 1 and 2 can be used) should be legible and therefore in typewriting or clear block letters. (Netherlands only need 1 original but 4 photos of the applicant!)
-A list of the district/multidistrict responsible YEO’s should be issued. (See Evanston list)
The decision/recommendations of this workshop should be brought to knowledge to all responsible YEO’s in EEMA via RI Evanston (President Richard Buss first receiver!) or/and attached to all invitations for summer camps 2001. (Sorry about delay for 2001. Irene)
It has been recommended that Internet should be used as today’s mean of communication as much as possible.
A good administration of camps is the basis for the success and also part of a positive image of Rotary International. A great gratitude is expressed to all districts which are organizing camps and render therefore a great support to the youth.
New Programs
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE, WHAT CAN BE DONE
Moderator & Recorder: Pietro Valentini Italy
Panelist: Kalevi Ihamaki Finland
Ton van Maanen The Netherlands
In the last few years some experimental tests were made under the program we call now “New generations Exchange”. It concerns a short-term exchange for young people between 18 and 25 years old and with a duration between 3 and 6 weeks. In the workshop we analyzed the two different experiences from Finland and from the Netherlands but – at the end – we wanted to hear the “Guideline” from Walter Wyser from Switzerland, too. Kalevi Ihamaki from Finland explained the experience made in Finland. In this Scandinavian country they supported all the EU European programs such as SOKRATES, COMENIUS, ERASMUS and LEONARDO DA VINCI and realize that the Youth Exchange Program is not competing but is complementary to these programs. Through the New Generation Program we can give the students the possibility to gain an experience by living with local families that is complementing their scholarly experience.
We have to consider, Kalevi said, that the young people show less interest in the “classic” youth exchanges which are too much on the high-school level. “N.G.E.” can be the G.S.E. program, for youth.
Kalevi continued with the affirmation that N.G.E is also very useful for starting a YE Program in new Rotarian districts/countries because we could invite their youth to stay for a longer period in our countries. To confirm this point of view, Ton van Maanen described the
“Planned organization in the
Netherlands”.
1. Aim: Young people between 18-25 years old, who have finished school. Beginners and young professionals from EEMA countries, with a preference for people from Middle and East Europe. The program does not offer regular education possibilities or formal apprenticeship periods. Candidates are accepted and selected for this program by Y.E.O. in Slovenia, Czech Rep. Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Other countries are excluded.
A discussion on this point was opened and resulted in mixed opinions. But it was concluded that we have to give the same opportunity to all the European countries and/or the far away countries
2. The Y.E. Organisation in the Netherlands will establish a databank for the interested countries.
3. Program content: Main aim is the professional development by apprenticeship and trainee experience. In the Netherlands the cultural and social experience is considered a secondary aim of the program.
4. Selection: In the country of origin in cooperation with Y.E.Officers, based on Dutch aims and goals.
5. Number of people: Ton said “We prefer small groups, about two participants”. One is also possible in special cases.
6. Duration: We accepted that this is to be decided by the receiving club. A 3-4 weeks stay could be a good period because the places of vocational training or study have to organize a counselor for the entire period. Six weeks could be too much.
7. Timing: To be decided by the receiving club. Potential participants may not be always able to quit their regular activities and therefore a long preparation time is necessary.
8. Language “English or German must be on a workable level” Ton said. An interview by phone from the Netherlands can be part of the selection.
(During the following discussion we decide that “The receiving clubs decide which is the workable language” because not in all the workshop it’s possible to find persons that speak English or German language.)
9. Costs: The costs of the NGE is to be paid for by the organizing club. Pocket money for the participants will be supplied also by the organizing club. Travel expenses have to be paid by the participant himself.
10. Insurance: Every participant has to pay for his own insurance but the receiving clubs have to define the insurance valid in local country.
11. Visa: Participants from some countries need a visa. The Multi-District Youth Committee of the Netherlands can be helpful in these cases. The same for a necessary residence permit.
12. Application forms: Ton said: “For this program we decided to adapt the standard forms of the SHORT TERM PROGRAM. Application in accordance with the regulations of the Dutch coordinator”.
13. Evaluation Report for the MDYC: The final reports are very important in this phase because through the reports we may evaluate which kind of NGE has more relevance and which will have to be ceased. For this reason every participant must hand in
his/her report before departure.
After the debate on the plan of the Dutch committee, Walter Wyser gave us
the copy of the “Guideline” from Switzerland.
The experience in Switzerland: Form the end of 1996, when the RI Board of Directors approved the NGE Program, the Multidistrict Switzerland has been organizing one NGE project every year. They realized with success projects with D.3290 INDIA, D.3810 PHILIPPINES and D.4890 ARGENTINA and they created lasting friendships.
Content: “The purpose – Walter said – of this kind of exchange is to foster goodwill and understanding through better cultural education and exposure, as with the current Y.E.P. Possible themes are: History, culture, economy, community concerns, tourist-attractions…and a lot of fun”.
The arrangement: This is a club-to club or district-to district arrangement as approved by the incumbent District Governor. Arrangements for the exchange should be made through the District Y.E. Chairperson.
Travel costs: It is recommended that travel costs be borne by the sending club (or district) and that the host club (or district) shall provide meals, lodging and local transportation.
Number of Participants: The NGE is a Short-Term Exchange from 3 to 6 weeks in duration and it may be for individuals or groups. Group range from 6 to 10 participants with a group-leadership by single Rotarian or a Rotarian couple. (For the individual program there is no difference from the other Short-Term Exchange than the age limits)
Duration: 3-6 weeks
Counter visit: usually within the same Rotarian year.
After the very intensive day of
work we went to town for a Middle Eastern Style Dinner at the restaurant of
Abu-Maher. The Folklore Group on Nazareth which is sponsored by the Municipality
performed Arab Folk Dances. They invited us to dance with them and taught us the
intricate steps of their dances.
Saturday
09.09.2001
Plenary Session Ⅲ
For Delegates and Partners
WHAT CAN GO WRONG IN ANY EXCHANGE PROGRAM,
WHAT CAN BE DONE TO MINIMIZE THE RISK
Moderator Richard Buss
Richard Buss presents Chris Gould whom he met at the lecture Chris gave on this subject at the Preconvention in Buenos Aires. Everybody was so impressed that it was decided that the YEO’s and partners at this conference should hear Chris as well.
Richard affirmed again that Youth Exchange relies very much on the partners and is convinced that their input and help can improve the quality of YE. They should also be involved in furthering the aims of the themes discussed at this conference which until now YE had underestimated and therefore somewhat neglected:
The Interfaith dialogue: for many years and in many conferences cultural differences have been discussed but little was it realized what interfaith differences, religious become a risk factor in exchanging young people.
Another fact is that YE believes that by setting up the four D’s and by observing a short risk-management paragraph in the YE handbook it has done everything to remove risk from Youth Exchange programs. The four D’s are well know:
Don’t Drink – it’s known you, it’s known to them. It is not new.
Don’t Drive – Same
Don’t Date – It’s known
Don’t Use Drugs – So far nothing new
Are the four D’s of the students equally well known?
Don’t tell when you do
Don’t get caught
Deny it if you are
And the last one Do it again
The talk of Chris Gould will expose another risk factor hardly discussed and acknowledged before:
IDENTIFYING THE RANGE OF CHILD ABUSE ON INTERNATIONAL VISITS
Rotarian Chris introduces himself: Detective Superintendent Chris Gould,
Avon and Somerset Constabulary, UK. Since 1999 Head of the Force Child Protection Team.
In the courses of his work on the Child Protection Team dealing with child abuse and as a result of research made possible by a special Police Research Award he became aware of the fact that abuse often occurs in exchange programs – even in Rotary. Just because Rotary does not always hear and does not talk about it doesn’t mean that it does not happen.
Chris mentioned that youth travel represents 20% of the world tourist market. 4% to 5% of these 20% young people experience some kind of abuse – physical, sexual or emotional. Most of these cases occur in homestay programs of the different organizations dealing with youth exchange. The “industry” researched is both complex and diverse. It does include commercial organizations, schools, summer schools, the voluntary sector (sports clubs, youth groups, scouts) to name just a few.
Child abuse can be very many things: From not enough food or lack of variety of food, no proper sleeping facilities to improper caresses and even to sexual abuse. Chris gave a long list of examples of all kinds of abuse and a scary list of actual investigated cases of sexual abuse including abuse of host children by the young guest.
One interesting fact discovered during the research is the great number of cases which are NOT reported. A variety of reasons were found for this:
Feeling vulnerable
Not able to call home
Lack of communication because of language problems
Whom can one trust?
Laws/ regulations/ procedures unfamiliar / not understand
Short stay or stay nearly over- going home soon
Origination from his Police Research Award scheme the CHILD SAFE PROJECT was created to help protect young people traveling abroad.
Their recommendations are that all organizations dealing with Youth Exchange
should have a clearly defined mission statement.
Chris suggests that Rotary Youth Exchange should establish a code of practice for its exchanges and not just assume that because someone else is a Rotarian
we can send the youngsters thousands of miles across the world to stay with virtual strangers.
Chris’ proposals include:
Rotary Mission Statement
Child Protection Policy for the Exchanges
For the young people
Parents
Organizers/volunteers
Hosts
Host family selection process (interview, visit to the home of the host, meet family members).
Dedicated specific guidance for
Exchangees
Host families
Counselor
Rotary YEO’s involved in all the aspects of the exchange organization
Parents
Understanding the cultural differences encountered by everybody involved in the exchange
Procedure for dealing with abuse of any kind when it happens
Chris ended his presentation with the following quote: “Youth and student travel
is an excellent for the young people of today, an opportunity which must be encouraged and taken whenever possible. The majority of trips and home stays
pass without incident and the travel is a lifetime experience – but if one young person suffers as a result of their travel, then that is one too many.
Richard: Thank you Chris, I think you have made us aware of a problem which I believe is more serious than we now and then have been thinking of. I have been responsible for sixteen years for the inbound long term students in our country, about 960 youngsters.
In your four per cent count I should have had to deal with thirty-eight cases. I know at least about ten or twelve, without looking through my papers. So I think that those – and you all know my statements are a bit strong – but I think those here who deny what you have said, they lie. It’s now up to the audience to talk about your experiences or put questions to Chris.
Roy Parsons, District 1220, United Kingdom:
Many of us wearing this badge consider we are slightly a cut above many other people. And with the confidence of this badge we look on anybody as equal to us. What Chris has said today, many of you think it couldn’t happen in Rotary. Well at the moment we have a past chairman in the United Kingdom, a past Chairman of the Youth Exchange Committee, halfway through his sentence of seven years in Dartmoore Prison for child abuse. Three months ago, a current president in my district of a Rotary Club was sentenced to four months for downloading pornography. Twelve months ago in a Scottish District, a District Governor was found to have forty thousand pictures of child pornography in his possession.
These were Rotarians. Please don’t go through life thinking this is the passport to safe passage. Thank you Chris for making us very, very aware of the situation.
Chrysanne Manoles from the United States:
My question is when do we call the police? If a student comes to us to report something, what should be the first thing we do?
Chris:
This is a good question. And it varies, the answer will vary depending on the country and the jurisdictions that are prevalent in the area that you come from. But I’ll answer it in general terms, so that you’ve got an idea of the way that it ought to be done. There are two angels to this.
This first thing is about identification. It’s about being aware that a young person is actually trying to say something to you. And it’s not as simple as a young person coming to you saying “Excuse me Mrs. Organizer, excuse me, Mrs. Organizer, I’ve just been assaulted by the host father”, and what he’s done and they describe it. They don’t do it like that. Occasionally you may get that, but it doesn’t happen very often. The message comes in very subtle ways, and you may have to just pick up the trigger. Firstly, to understand that they’ve reported or are trying to report something to you.
Now, when you have picked up the trigger and you recognize that they are trying to say and disclose something, the second part is you then need to identify exactly what it is that they are saying to you. So you now need to ask some questions, clarification questions, to clarify what they are saying.
Once you’ve clarified it, what you mustn’t do, - depending on where we are now going to go with this – what you mustn’t do are things like, “Say, well that can’t be possible”. Or, “That’s very unlike Mr. Blocks, he wouldn’t normally do that, I’m sure you’re wrong”. That’s it; you’ll destroy that child. You’ll destroy that young person and they’ll never tell you anything else. You need to comfort them, you need to reassure them, you need to tell them that they’ve done the right thing by telling you. That’s what you need to do begin with. You need to stop at that point and just check on what you’ve got on what you’re dealing with. If you are not sure, then speak to somebody else within your organization. Hopefully your organization will have somebody within the structure that will have a little bit more knowledge about child protection. Remember I was talking about the first aid stuff, this is the sort of people that you need. If you haven’t got anyone else that can help, then you are going to have to make a decision yourself. But when it comes to reporting to the police, there are two sides to this. There are different organizations within the different communities that deal with child abuse.
So it may be that it’s the police. In many areas it’s a form of social services that deal with abuse. In some areas you can actually go to charitable organizations that will deal with aspects of abuse. So you need to know what all those are in your own area. You also need to know, depending on where you are situated in the world, whether or not you have to report, or don’t have to. Because you may yourself be committing a criminal offense. If you are now aware that a child abuse act has occurred and you don’t tell someone, you may be committing an offense yourself by not telling the statutory authorities depending on where you are. You need to know whether that applies to you where you are. When you are making the decision, in the areas where it’s note mandatory, you need to consider this; that there is also an issue of intelligence. That it may be if a child or young person has told you that she’s had her breasts fondled by the host father and didn’t enjoy it, and has told him now three times that that’s a piece of intelligence which is useful for the local law enforcement agency to know about. It may be that they are dealing with this guy for a whole host of other things, which you are not aware of. But without you telling them how are they going to know how he’s actually using his skills, if that’s the right word, in actually abusing children. They need to know the process, the way that he’s grooming. And that’s a grooming process. So, those are the ways to do it. You need to find out, fact-find first in your own area and then decide, but remember intelligence all the time.
Richard:
You know that we are working in a very closed organization: Rotary, who does not like that one of its members is accused of something of this kind. So when you become aware of it, there will be a problem what to do. And as you said, it can be a criminal offense to know that something has happened and but it is not reported to the police or to an official institute. How do I know that I endanger myself, that it is a serious case or a non-serious case? I think that’s the problem for us to estimate. Sometimes you do not know what is behind an accusation. Is there any rule you could give, or any advice you could give us, when it is serious enough, or do you say – always report it?
Chris:
I think that you need to have a structure in place within the organization which helps you to know that one individual is making that decision about whether or not to report. Unless it is so blatantly obvious that a criminal offense has taken place, and you’ve got a distraught victim there, you should be doing something about it there and then. Where it’s not so tangible, where it’s a little bit more of a gray area and you’re not sure, then you need to go through a process. But what you need to have is that process written down, and I suspect in many areas in this organization it’s not written down – who you would go to if a child or young person disclosed something; who you’d speak to; who’s the independent person who would take that information from the child or the young person. Who is their mentor, for instance? How are you going to extract that information? What are the rules? At what point is there a process of warnings that you would give? Do you give a warning? Do you give a verbal warning? Do you give a written warning? At what point do you say – right, three warnings, strike and you’re out?
Now there are examples of all that in the literature, in the books that I’ve written. But it is no good just copying what I’ve done and paying lip service to it. If you’re going to do this you’ve got to do it properly and you’ve got to be part of the process, which really is what the workshop next are about. It’s actually getting you a little bit more involved in the process of creating a good practice – and I’ve spoke to a lot of you, either here or in Buenos Aires, - I know that many of you have invented your own bits and pieces. Some of those are very good. But you need to share that. You need to capture it and you need to pass it round as a Rotary standard. That’s what’s missing, from what I can see, in Rotary. There is no Rotary standard, and you might want to copy some of the processes I outline here. But you need to have it.
Joe Bluemel from District 5440 in the U.S.:
You talk about these triggers. Can you be more specific and identify warning lights or whatever. In other words, when a student is coming and saying, “I have this problem or I have that problem” are those often the way to lead into actually getting the confidence that a student will actually talk to the district counselor. Can you be a little more specific on that please?
Chris:
There is a lot of literature written about trigger mechanisms, grooming processed, on child abuse. This is the wrong forum to go into details on that. But just to give you some ideas. In some of the books that I’ve written, I try to give u the more simplistic things to look for, because as I said I’m not trying to train you to be child protection specialists. I am just trying to give you a general overview.
In a lot of instances we’ve noticed that young people have had injuries that are visible, but that organizers and even parents have missed. Or they may have seen them, but on first comment or inspection the explanation that is given is glib enough, - because children or young people won’t tell you that that’s a restraining grip whilst they’ve been raped. They won’t tell you that straight off, and if you make a comment initially about a bruise on an arm or something like that they will probably give you a story. But it’s being able to firstly recognize that there is an injury there, and to be in a position to make comment.
The second thing is, that if you are unhappy about the response, that’s when you need to have a procedure which enables the child or young person to talk to an independent person. Not as: -we’ve noticed something so we want you to speak to them – and putting them under that kind of pressure. If it is built in as part of your standard process that they have an neutral person to talk to, that is what is they will do. It’s got to be as if it’s natural that they’re doing that.
You get a lot of what I call feigned illnesses. So you may end up with young people saying to you that they don’t feel well and they’ve got stomach pains, or they’ve got an infection and they’ve really got a headache today and they don’t want to go on this trip, or they don’t want to do this, that, or the other. Now, in my experience and certainly in debriefing these young people, you heard that these complaints were really telling you – “there’s a problem. But you’ve dealt with it, or many of you may have dealt with it by” –Okay, don’t go on the trip ” or-“you’ve got to go on the trip”, or whatever it may be. And so you ride over the issue, or you may say, “Have a paracetamol” or “take a tablet”, or “sit down for a minute and see how you feel in an hour”, or something like that. You say this without actually thinking that there may be something else behind this. And in many instances there won’t be anything behind it. But in the few that there is something, you may not have a process or haven’t developed a system that enables them to go that little step further to tell you. In some instances the children and young people that we’ve dealt with have told us about their fear, once something has happened, - their fear of actually being in the presence of certain individuals. That’s a trigger! And that’s something that you need to look out for, and you can spot quite easily. It’s a physical expression – it is where they stand, who they don’t stand near by, who they’ve got a real hatred for or fear in their eyes about having to be near to- on a coach, or in a car, or in a vehicle, or walking with. You can actually see this in their faces. There are lots of little signs like that.
Richard:
Are the symptoms the same when we are speaking about mental abuse, for instance as we have discussed yesterday, when we meet very severe religious or cultural differences? Are the symptoms the same and they feel suppressed in this surrounding?
Chris: The symptoms aren’t exactly the same. There are some different symptoms or triggers that you can spot with emotional abuse, because effectively, by definition, we are talking about emotional abuse there. But the pressures, the way they feel about being in the company with the others, is very similar. So you can still pick these things up. But what is required is the ability to identify it first, but have a process, that if you don’t identify it, enables you to capture it anyway. And that maybe by having questionnaires, and you can introduce questionnaires either before the trip, during the trip, at the end of the trip, when they’ve got home, back to their own country, debriefing processes. I’m not saying you should do all of this. What I’m saying is you can think about some of those elements in relation to actually making sure that you’ve got feedback from these youngsters. Because you may miss things, but it would be useful for you to get feedback to know where you’ve missed out and how you can improve in the future.
Donna Vesely of Essex, USA:
I’m kind of curious, as Rotarians we do feel, like Roy said, this badge makes us just a little cut above everyone else. When a student does come to you with a situation and you don’t want to alienate them, but your initial thought is – I know this person could not do this. What kind of questions can we ask that student to determine that the student isn’t wanting some attention, or annoyed with a situation, so they area making an accusation that actually is false, before you would automatically assume that it is true?
Chris:
The first thing is that this actually demonstrates the problem. Do you see what I mean? This is a good question, but it is exactly part of the problem. The fact that you are going to think this couldn’t have happened, because of the person that he/she is, is actually part of the inherent problem that we’ve got. Now, to come back to your question, because that is a good demonstration of an issue – but let’s say that in this particular instance, it’s a false allegation, or there has been a misunderstanding about something that’s happened which has been understood by the victim as being something which it wasn’t.
The first thing after you were told about an incident, is to go back to the advice mentioned before, about the reassurance and the support. Afterwards there needs to be some sort of analysis of what they are really telling you, so you can actually establish what the facts are. But remember, always keep at the back of your mind, just because you don’t think this person could have done it, that it didn’t happen.
At some of these conferences I’ve actually brought some of the victims in and got them to tell the audience what happened to them. I mean it’s unbelievable. You would never have dreamt that some of these things could have happened, not in a million years. So when the young people do tell you something, the first thing is building the trust, building the relationship. But your procedure should be that you have this independent person. You can’t make decisions on your own. In terms of the questions that you ask, you are going to have to be careful here. Obviously, you’re going to ask open questions to establish what the facts are. But once you’ve got the facts do not become the interrogator and questioner and contradictor of that evidence. Firstly, if it’s true, you may contaminate it, legally. So remain with your open questions. Do not pry deeper, once you’ve got it, but accept it for what it is. Then take it through your process that you ought to have in relation to whom you then report it to in the hierarchy. It may be that you are the person in the hierarchy that will then have to make that decision about reporting it to an agency, a statutory agency. If you are, and you report it, then let the statutory agencies do their job. It’s like the person that comes to you with a cut finger, you might be able to deal with, but the person that’s come to you with a broken leg, you can’t. Let the hospital do the work. So in this instance you may have to let – if you can’t take it any further and there is no corroborative evidence that suggests that this individual is wrong – you’re going to do your own basic investigation, depending on what the allegation is, initially, to establish the facts. If beyond that you can’t without sitting down, interrogating that young person or the suspected offender, then you must pull out. That’s not your job. You can’t be judge and jury in this. And that’s the problem, part of the problem with all this. One thousand cases, less than ten reported to the law enforcement agencies, over fifty per cent reported to organizers; you cannot be judge and jury. That is not your role. We must let the statutory authorities know once certain thresholds are reached. And you will have to determine what that threshold is.
The problem for people like yourselves, when this happens in a Rotary program, is that you sit here and tell me that one can’t possibly tell this to a statutory authority because it’s bad for the Rotary image. Well I’m afraid that’s not good enough. I don’t care about how bad it is for the image. I do feel, in another sense, that it could actually be good for the name of Rotary. If they decide to go forward and say, “We found this and that, we’ve ousted so and so, reported him to the police. He’s now gone to prison”. You actually declare that and with that you’re actually making a fairly impressive statement which says, “We do not tolerate this behavior in our organization. We are against it, we will not accept it. If we find it well deal with it”. And that can actually be quite productive. There is some fear hear that it can work against you and it can in some instances. It can in the beginning. But, you know it’s not a good argument. And I think that you’ve just got to stand back from being the judge and jury.
Donna:
So when the student comes to you, and you listen to all the allegations, do you then go to the other side and get their story? Or you’re saying that you should from that point – that is when you need to report it to the authorities and let them take it from there?
Chris:
The problem with this type of questioning is that there are so many ifs and buts. And what you really need is, you need a case study. And that’s where training comes in. If we had a case study, and we specifically had a case that we were talking about we could all talk our way through; what would you do? How would you do it? What would I do? And what would an expert do, etc. The problem is I’m trying to be too general, because we don’t know what you’re thinking about in terms of what someone may have said to you. It might be totally different from what somebody over here is thinking about that they think you’re thinking about. So do you see what I mean? It’s very confusing to actually give a hard and fast rule. If we could do a case study it would be easier. This is not about a case study. This is about giving you a general flavor for it. You must determine as an organization how you move forward with this. You must think about whether training for things like that is appropriate, and whether you actually have a process where you can actually come up with half a dozen scaled case studies that you could actually set out in a booklet that could actually give you different points, different judgements that you would make. But it’s very difficult for me to sit here and give you – at that point would I report this to a law enforcement agency – because I don’t know what case we’re talking about. If we’re talking about a sixteen year old girl who has come to you and said, “Look, I’ve just been raped by my host”, at what point do you report it? Are you going to go round and say, “Hang on a minute, exactly how did you do it? Where did it happen? Well hang ion I’m going to check this out with the host!” You wouldn’t. As soon as a young person says to you, “I’ve been raped by my host”. What else do you need? That’s it! You report it.
Richard:
And you’re sure that this is the way, because I’ve very often been in doubt who was to blame, the host or the host’s father or mother. And to find out who is to blame is already the first part of the procedure, and I fully agree with Chris. To my experience, anyway, in these sixteen years, in the beginning you don’t know where you start. To find out before you can accuse either one side or the other is procedure by itself. I don’t know whether you agree about that. That’s more or less also estimating the continuation. How to continue depends what are you first thoughts. In what direction are they going?
Walter Wyser, Multi-District, Switzerland:
Chris, first of all thank you for making us aware of this problem and encouraging us to look in the face of the truth. We will definitely add this in our information orientation process, besides the training of the counselors. But I think we need professional assistance. And if I understood you correctly, you mentioned that you have founded an organization like “Child Safe”. My question is, does this organization, or has it already, spread out over Europe, over the globe, so that we can contact some people to get professional assistance?
Thank you.
Chris:
Child Safe is now a registered charity, which is at the moment about to go national in the U.K. Child Safe has been spoken about world wide, and there is some information. Certainly for those of you that are going to the panels, or panelists in the workshops, I’ve got probably just enough conference reports from the conference that we held in the U.K., an international conference there last year, on the work of “Child Safe”. We had twenty-one different countries represented: statutory agencies, voluntary agencies from child protection were there to actually be part of the process of helping me write the books, the seven books. This is the first one that is basic; it’s not printed yet, this is just a rough copy, one that we are going to give to the children and young people themselves, that they can actually take with them. It’s something that will help them to ask you and their parents the right questions to carry with them the right information about what they need to know, and to remind them that they ought to be reminding you and reminding parents about other things. Then, there’s a book as I say, for parents and guardians themselves, so they will have information about the sorts of things that you ought to be doing as organizers. This is for the parents of the traveling youth.
In relation to the charity, it will become an international charity. You will be able to contact us at the charity and find out where you can get information from the web site that we’ve got, and also from us, as to who you ought to be contacting locally, to actually give you support in relation to these issues. The web site is
HYPERLINK http://www.child-safe.org.uk
www.child-safe.org.uk
Richard:
Chris, we are speaking about four per cent of our exchange. In the lowest estimation, in eight thousand exchangees worldwide a year, it would make three hundred and twenty cases a year or at a high estimate of four per cent of ten thousand, four hundred cases a year. So I think we should work on it and I’m glad that we now have the workshops where we will translate your recommendations into practical proposals for our work that we can make the programs safer and better. This is one of the main issues of this conference, to perfect the quality of our programs. I’m very grateful you gave us from the little time you have and I am very glad you have joined us and given us your lecture and will also help in the workshops now.
Workshop
Reports
SPECIFY WHAT NEEDS MORE ATTENTION IN ABUSE PREVENTION UN YOUR PROGRAM
Long Term
Moderator: Richard Buss, The Netherlands
Panelists: Bo Chapin, USA
Jan Haraldseth, Norway
Kari Lintuvuori Finland
Recorder: Christian Gerber Switzerland
Introduction by the Moderator
Prevention = Risk management awareness
# Selection / Screening, who does it?
YEO, Club, District
Host Family
School
Student
Any other
# Orientation for everyone involved in the program, especially
YEO
Counselor
Host Family
School
Student
# Escort, how?
Preferable personal contact
Top down / bottom up information procedures
Every two month at least
Written report of oral reported problems
# Every (Multi-) District should have one YEO responsible for risk management
Main tasks:
Making of protocol
Training / Meeting of YEO’s
# The student is escorted by
the counselor
the Host Family
the school
any other
Panelists presentations and discussion
Presentations and following discussions show that it is important to focus on two topics:
Prevention
Action when abuse occurs
1 PREVENTION
Best candidate:
It is most important to select the best candidate to assure a successful stay for both the student and the host parents. To be able to make a choice, the sponsor club needs to have several candidates. We don’t need the best in school, but the best in communication skills, social behavior, adaptation to unfamiliar surroundings and other qualities. Unless the student is above average he/she is not suitable for the exchange program.
Good preparation of students:
The students are not always sufficiently prepared before leaving their home country. Former exchange students should be more involved in Rotary activities
like Rotex (none in Norway f.ex)
It is very important to have contact with the host family and counselor in advance. The counselor should speak English.
The “Sample Questions to Ask Your Host Family” (Appendix I of the Youth Exchange Handbook) is of great help if the student can understand it. Translation of Appendix I into the mother language of the student (and the host family?) is recommended.
Better information:
Extensive information on all aspects through sponsor club and district are very important.
Make use of the good network of the Rotary Organization:
It is an advantage if the student is introduced to all host families early in his stay.
The counselor is the first person the student meets. Therefore it is necessary that a confidential relationship develops. The counselor should have a spouse in order that the student can also talk to the other sex. If the organization works and the student has a good relationship and is able to communicate, an abuser will be revealed immediately.
The YEO visits and meets the Host Family before the selection:
The only way to get to know the Host Family is through a visit to meet all the family members and see the house and room where the student will live.
He will talk with them about their exchange student and how they will manage with the new situation. He may ask himself: Is this a family where I would send my son or daughter?
The YEO integrates the teacher-counselor of the school:
A specific teacher should be asked to act as teacher – counselor or tutor for the exchange student. His or her task is to take care of the exchangees well being in school.
The YEO of the host club should have good relations and contacts with the school counselor and should be in communication with him/her regularly throughout the exchange year.
The first five days
The counselor is well advised to host the student during the first five days after arrival in his home.
Risk management on district level:
Within the district we need at least two persons who are responsible for the reduction of risk. One person is concentrating on the protection of the students and the other on liabilities.
Better education of the YEO and counselor:
Their task is not only to select the families but to support and counsel both the family and the exchange student during the whole exchange year.
Awareness
It is important that we are aware of possible abuse problems which may occur
Last but not least:
The creation of good, well-working and continuing contacts and relations between host club, host family and school is the KEY
It might be useful to set up a project team together with Christopher Gould to get guidelines for the future (personal remark of the recorder)
2- ACTION WHEN DISTURBANCE AND/OR ABUSE OCCUR
Detecting and analyzing signals carefully and in time.
The persons responsible for the exchangee should work closely with specialists and act immediate
Short term
/ Family to Family
Moderator & Recorder: Donna Vesely, USA
Panelists: Douglas Guertler, Brazil
Vreni Wyser, Switzerland
1 Evaluation of the Problem:
Dose the problem exist in Rotary?
What is the cause of the problem?
2 STEP (Short Term Exchange Program) is not as structured as Long Term:
Interviews lacking
Orientation lacking
Not given the same level of attention by districts / multidistricts
No Rotary contacts established for students
3 What STEP needs to do:
Interview students and families
Orientation for outgoing students
Rotary contact / counselor
4 Do Groups like EEMA need to establish standards for member
organizations for trading partners
# Standardized application with questions to screen for problems
# Training for Rotarians
# Interview of students
# Orientations for students
# Rotary contact / counselor or students
5 Conclusions:
We need procedures & training to limit possibilities of abuse – type problems on exchanges.
A request to submit standard procedures for STEP for inclusion
In the chairman’s manual was made. This request will be presented to the RI Youth Exchange Committee for approval as a practice and requirement
For future Short Term exchanges. This standard in place would provide support to reduce risk of abuse and provide the students with a safe environment.
Camps / Handicamps / New programs
Moderator: Bernard Dahman, Germany
Panelist: Jorma Keinanen, Finland
Panelist &
Recorder: Bill Sturgeon, USA
Rotary deals with 10,000 exchange students annually
Rotary host families are chosen on non-commercial, non-profit bases: one of the strongest features of Rotary – yet still, child abuse can happen even in Rotary.
Child, sexual abuse is a sensitive matter but f.ex sauna in Finland is just culture shock
Mr. Keinanen: Summer camps are usually 2-3 weeks in length; child and sexual abuses are rare in Finland – probably never happened before and probably never happens
OPEN DISCUSSION
information organizer
more preparation for participant
education host family
appoint a counselor even for short-terms:
evaluation of the counselor from the camp participants should be anonymous
HANDICAMP
child, sexual abuse is even less common to happen because of presence of a companion.
CONCLUSION
Printed guidance is needed (specifically: publications by Christian Gould)
Professional training for counselors is needed to provide ability to detect child abuse and what actions to take – and when.
Printed information (ex. by Christian Gould) for host families as will as participants is needed.
Plenary
Closing Session
Chairman: Richard Buss
News from Evanston: Elisabeth Gruenther
Elisabeth explained that she was appointed to be in charge of Rotary Friendship Exchange and Youth Exchange in the Department of Intercultural and Recognition Programs. She is now our address in Evaston.
Elisabeth told us how interesting it was for her to participate in the conference and to get to know YE work and the YEOs of the EEMA region. She is also involved in the organization of the Preconvention meeting of Youth Exchange at the International Convention in San Antonio and invited us to attend.
And to end her greetings Elisabeth mentioned that there are a number of publications on Youth Exchange available from Evanston.
Discussion of the Conference Guidelines: The Conference kit received by all participants as well as the Conference report from Thessaloniki, contained a copy of the Conference Guidelines prepared over the past two years by Werner Keller, Richard Buss and Jean Claude Penicaud.
The chairman introduces the guidelines:
These guidelines are for meant for use by future EEMA YEO Conference Committees in order to facilitate the organization of the conferences and the standardization of certain technical aspects. The guidelines also set the standards for the compensation of expenses incurred by the EEMA YEO Conference President in the preparation and participation in the conferences.
In the past this compensation was partially effected by incorporating into the conference fees the cost of conference and post conference of the President / Vice President and partners.
This will not be done in the future but it was decided to proposed to charge every participant 50 Euros to be paid in addition to the conference fees.
The guidelines were brought to the vote and were accepted.
Election
of Honorary Members
According to the rules accepted at the conference in Johannesburg in 1994 the following YEO’s were proposed and elected as Honorary Members:
Peter Lucan-stood Austria
Kalevi Ihamaki Finland
Tony Jarvis South Africa
Walter & Vreni Wyser Switzerland
Certificate if Merit
At the conference in Vienna in 1998 it was voted that participants from non EEMA countries may be awarded a Certificate of Merit for attending more than three EEMA conferences. The following have been nominated to receive the Certificate of Merit this year:
Arnoldo Viera Brazil
Donna Vesely US
EEMA
Conference 2005
Hanns-Peter Polikeit presented the candidacy of Berlin for the year 2005 on behalf of the German Conference Committee. He showed a beautiful short film on the New Berlin. Berlin was accepted by vote to hold the EEMA Conference in 2005.
Conference
Venues for the next five years
2001 Lille, France
2002 Rotterdam The Netherlands 50th Anniversary of EEMA Youth
Exchange Conference
2003 Arhus, Denmark
2004 Belgium
2005 Berlin, Germany
The chairman invited Roy Parsons, member of the RI Committee on Youth Exchange 1998/2000 to address us, at the end of the conference on
LOOKING
BACK, LOOKING FORWARD.
Can you see me, to me that is more important than being able to hear me.
Please may I ask no pictures, my staff think I am working at home at present, not here in Israel
How clever the Germans have been producing a video for just seven minutes. They know a Rotarians concentration period is for a maximum if 10 minutes and that is not always consecutively.
Chairman
Richard
Friends
Richard, even though I have separated you from the friends I hope you do not think I am excluding you from that category
Well another EEMA Conference draws to a close
How has it been for you?
Who is here for the first time?
Was it worth coming?
Did you get anything out of it?
With YE,
it is the involvement of all that make it such an enjoyable occasion.
Can I
thank you Richard for giving me this opportunity to sum up this Conference and
perhaps to look to the future.
To our
Conference Chair Person Irene and the Committee
With
having Kay here with me, we have benefited by having two plates as gifts.
Do you
know?
At home
now we will be able to eat together after all these years,
Thank you
very much.
Can I also
thank the person at our dinner table last night, who after the second dish said,
eat up that’s all you are going to get.
Can I
thank Elisabeth Grunther, who heard after Buenos Aires, that Royal Dutch
Airlines, KLM, had a price on my head, due to the bad publicity, insisted on
trying every dish first, then passing it over and managing to describe exactly
what every dish contained. That was amazing.
To my
friends from the Netherlands, who after we returned to the hotel, having the
intention of an early night. Proved to me that every bottle of wine opened after
midnight tasted better.
Can I
thank Donna Vesely, who when I said that when you went up stairs you could not
get from one elevator to the other.
Donna
proved to me that if you went high enough you could.
To prove
her point she showed me, so instead of walking about 100 metres to my room I had
to walk about 400.
Darling
Kay that really is the reason I was so late home last night.
Well if
your room is on the 6th floor you cannot get from one side of the hotel to the
other.
What if
there is a fire?
I spent
the rest of the night awake and worrying about that, hence that is why I look so
tired today.
Werner
yesterday quoted from a plaque in Jerusalem, words from an Englishman in 1993
Lord Allenby….Wise Words
Well I do
not think in this case with Richard asking me to sum up today, those could have
been the last wise words you will hear from an Englishman in Jerusalam.
But we are
always on a learning curve
To have
yesterday, three distinguished members of three major religions talking to us
from the same platform, for me being a practising agnostic and listening as I
seek, I drew much comfort from their input.
It also
made me realize how ignorant I am of many religions.
We flew
here by EI AI
One hour
into the flight, the cabin staff were consulted by a section of the passengers,
much movement up and down the aisle.
I was
becoming concerned, nay worried.
A quick
check by me showed both engines in their right place
It was
just a prayer meeting, which was to become a regular feature of the flight.
I
cancelled my call to the Almighty and went back to reading.
A Hindu Lady in our country was asked why was she shopping for Christmas armed with a Christmas tree as she was.
She replied, Why should her children miss out
Makes sense to me.
Ignorance
is a dangerous thing and is responsible for many problems.
Language
misunderstanding does not always help either.
In the
session on exchange of the Handicapped, the mention of two deaf students from
different parts of the world in total accord signing with each other.
Perhaps we
all ought to sigh
It would
have perhaps helped the Scottish teacher on taking a party of her five year olds
around Sterling Castle. Her form of control when they became to unruly was to
shout “FREEZE” Sadly for all the American tourists at the castle that day,
they expected more than a teacher basically trying to get her pupils to stand
still, they all dropped to the floor and spread eagled themselves.
A true
story
It was
talked of in one of the sessions that all students should have language lessons
before they leave home, perhaps that proves a point.
There has
been much talk this year of students returning home with depression and stress.
I do not
wish to be unkind here but if there is ever a problem in our country now in move
the Stress Councilors
If you are
not suffering from stress before they move in, you certainly soon will be.
Is the
environment more stressful now than when I grew up?
A war on,
very little in the way of food, and I know what a bomb sounds like while it is
falling
Has the
wonderful society that many of us now live in, with the emphasis on material
items and wealth been responsible for this?
Perhaps we
should ask the worlds starving if they are suffering from stress.
Not
wishing to make light of the whole matter, but in the light of the presentation
by Chris Gould this morning, could this be one of the reasons why some students
are suffering from depression and stress, are we missing something? We need to
be aware.
I was made
aware earlier this year, having taken Kay to a conference in a wheel chair. Even
though there are many improvements, there are still many problems for wheel
chair people in the UK. But as was said in the session, nothing is impossible if
proper research is done before hand.
You might
be wondering what a person who is now out of the programme is doing here?
Can I just
explain, and this might help you to understand why in GBI the problems
you may, and we have experienced in the past with the YE programme.
Especially
with the lack of continuity
It used to
be when you finish your year as Governor you are asked whether you would be
prepared to sit on one on one of the National Committees.
I said I
would be prepared, realizing then, as a District Governor coming to the end of
my year, I had not managed to change the world.
What ever
was to happen in the future it could not be more time consuming than being a
governor.
I listed
my choice of three committees
INTERNATIONAL……
COMMUNITY…… FOUNDATION……
And what did they give me?
Yes you’ve guest it, YOUTH EXCHANGE
I was
devastated
My own
children had left home
I had
forgotten most of the language of the teenager
One
grunt…. I think, I remember was a no…
Two grunts
was, I think, a yes….
The
look… that said are you stupid as they slammed out of the room shouting I wish
you were dead….
And Rotary
wanted me to get involved with teenagers again….
I wanted
International…. I wanted Community I wanted just anything but that.
How wrong
I was
Because I
realized within a very short time, this programme gave you a little of every
Rotary Programme.
And not
only that, it gave you the opportunity to change a young persons life
forever….
Not many
Rotarians have that opportunity, certainly not at such close range
I know you
have heard this many times before….
You are
the hardest workers of any project Rotary has to offer
If those
Rotarians at the top of the tree know how to win your favour…
That is
their opening line.
Well when
it comes from me…. I really mean it…. Because I know…
I have
worked with you over the years, and I know what effort goes in to making this
programme work.
You are
the hardest most dedicated members that Rotary has, and may you continue to have
all the success you deserve for the future.
So what of
the future for this programme?
What do we
have
A falling
membership in Rotary
If not
falling certainly static.
An ageing
membership, what is it now? Average age of
63/64 years….
Rotaries
concern for the protection of young people
And
Rightly so…
As has
been mentioned at this Conference, even though a person wears a Rotary Pin, all
is not totally well in the Rotary World
Education
Authorities are making it more difficult with the demand for fees.
Governments
adding restrictions and costs for entry
All adding
up to making your life more difficult in encouraging Rotarians to get involved
with this wonderful programme.
Life is
not going to be easy for you….
But then
it never was.
It was
good to hear in one session, exchanges where increasing in Bordeaux and other
areas.
We know
our hope for the future is with our young people…
The hope,
that with travel and the experience of living with other nationalities and
cultures, that a better understanding of mankind will follow.
I hope the
prejudices of us, the older generation, will be eradicated form their minds.
Turn on
the Television in the UK today and you would think that World War 11 was still
on.
My
apologies to my German Friends here but do you know how many times we have sunk
the Bismarck since the turn of the century?
Yes learn
from history we must
*And
especially being here among the Jewish Nation that have suffered so much in past
history
Yes we
must learn from past events
But to the
young they are past events….
Events not
to be forgotten
But not to
be used to perpetuate hatred between nations.
And what
is done in the name of Religion throughout the world at any one time, to me
being an agnostic is unbelievable.
Let us
hope that with your efforts in the future, there will be some hope.
While
addressing the breakfast meeting for Incoming Governors in Buenos Aires.
A note was
slipped to me by a Rotarian working on the YE programme.
It said,
if there had been YE Students in Kosovo there would not have been a conflict.
Now I am
not sure that that would have stopped the conflict, but certainly it did seem a
better option than what the outcome was
Tanks do
not talk peace
Taken from
the inflight magazine of EL AI on the way over.
At birth
they learn to cry
At one
they learn to walk
At two
they learn to speak
At three
they learn to stop wetting their pants
At four
they learn to hate
From the
Organisation Peace Child Israel
Sad but
true
When we
hear from the students on how they are managing to live together, perhaps it is
us that should be going on the exchanges.
Finally
with much talk on how we are destroying the environment.
I have
received more bad news today.
Would you
all please stand.
Let us
remember the three trees that died today so as you can receive all the paperwork
that will come out of Evanston over the next week.
Thank you.
Closing
Remarks by President Richard Buss
As President of this Conference, my first one in this function, I have a good feeling. Not for what I did, but the way Irene Lewitt and her committee organized this meeting. The outstanding quality of the keynote speakers they had chosen, the location and program presented to us was one of the best we ever had. We go home with the feeling that the experienced YEO’s added knowledge and the rewarding number of new YEO’s attending the meeting soon found their way to make friends in this wonderful atmosphere and most important, discovered the quality in Youth Exchange.
We continue to an interesting Post Conference tour were we can spend some more time together so we do not have to say good bye yet. To the few who have to leave us before the end of the Post Conference tour I wish a safe journey home and to all of us a successful year in Youth Exchange. We shall meet again next year in Lille.
The
closing session was followed by sightseeing in Nazareth and a visit to the
Church of the Annunciation.
In the evening we traveled to the Gan Shlosha Park for our open air festive dinner.
During cocktails Peter Kroen, the representative of RI President Devlyn addressed us: PDG Kroen told us that he was very happy to have been able to attend the EEMA conference of Youth Exchange. It gave him the opportunity to get to know this part of Rotary activities, its work and its organization better. It gave him an understanding of the importance and of the effect of Youth Exchange. He appreciates the very interesting panel, lectures and the serious discussions which followed. Peter promised faithfully to be our man on Rotary’s Broad of Directors as Director for the year 2001-2004.
Dinner was
followed by a Folk Dance performance by pupils of a school in Afula who full of
enthusiasm made us dance with them. It was a happy ending of a good conference.
26/01/2000
Kurt Leistner, Wienerstrasse 179, A – 4020 Linz/Donau
1987 Helmut Scholz, Hietzinger Hauptstrasse 41, A – 1130 Vienna
1994 Peter Birkmayer, Martinstrasse 10, A - 1180 Vienna
Jean Struvay, Printania S.P. R.L., 1 Grand Place, B – 5200 Huy
1994 Pierre Gathy, Boulevard du Rectorat 19, B – 4200 Liege (Ougree)
1995 Jean van Eeckhout ( )
1999 Michael Dumont, Avenue d’Azedois 57, B-6041 Gosselies.
Orla Norberg, Goormagade 8, DK – 8260 Visby/J.
Aage Rasmussen ( )
Svend Larsen ( )
1987 Oluf Poulsen, ( )
1995 Poul Berg, ( )
Mohammed Fateen, 46 Sheriff Pascha Street, ET – Cairo
Bernard Eades ()
Fred Pedley, The Grange’, Brich in Haywood/Lancashire GB- 0LI0
2RB
James B. Fair, ()
Neilson Swanson, 14 Rowellan Drive, Kilmarnock/Airshire KA 3 1
TW
1993 John Pedley, “The Grange”, Brich in Heywood/Lancashire GB- 0LI0
2RB
1993 Norman Wellens, 138 Hollin Lane, Middleton, GB – Manchester M24
3LB
1993 Peter Maddieson, The Manor House, Old Romney, Romney Marsh,
GB – Kent TN29 OHP
Raimo Sinkonen, Possilankatu 47 A1, FI – 3340 Tampere 40
Osso Pursiainen, Lonkari, FI- 51600 Haukivuori
1995 Ilpo Lehtinen, Kolehmaisenkatu 20, FI – 11100 Riihimaki
1997 Olli-Pekka Aarnio, Kyntaejaentie 16, FI – 45120 Kouvola
1997 Pekka Paavolainen, Koivukuja 4, FI – 339 960 Pirkkala
1998 Matti Savela, Meijeritie 24, FI – 63700 Aethaeri
Raymond Proton de la Chapelle, 133 rue G. Clemenceau,
F – 69110 St. Foy-Les-Lyon
1996 Rene Missonnier, 9, rue de Nancy, F – 03200 Vichy
1996 Claude Baudia, Le Planton, F – 40000 Saint Redard
1998 Andre Lamarque, Route des Landes, F – 47160 Damazan.
1998 Jean-Louis Jucla, Route nationale 113, F – 47400 Tonneins
Helmut Muscheid, St. Johannisgraben 16, D – 5583 Zell/Mosel
1987 Andreas von Schubert, Schubertsche Gutsverwaltung Maximin Gruenhaus, D – 54318 Mertesdorf
1990 Paul Meentzen, Gravelottestr. 78, D – 2800 Bremen 28
1998 Jules August Schroeder, Eichekbergring 37, D – 63654 Buedingen.
Denise Ceroni, 8 Kolokotroni Street, GR – Patras
Isi J. Loonstein, ( )
1993 Irene Lewitt, 7 Oved St., Isr- 93551 Jerusalem
1996 Netzach Davidi, 3 Hartzit St., Isr – 44413 Kfar Saba
1999 Arnon Erez, 11 Anatot St., Isr.-90917 Givat Zeev
Tristano Bolelli, Lungarno Mediceo 40, I – 56100 Pisa
1983 Massimo Galetti ( )
1995 Franco Emmer ( )
1995 Harriet Emmer, Via Guglielmo Marconi 1/E, I – 24020 Gorle BG
1997 Italo Ferrante, Via S. Groce 3, I-20122 Milano
1999 Antonio Pacella, V.C.Antignano 103, I-157128 Livorno
1999 Andrea Rastelli, Viale XXV Aprile 132, I- 10133 Torino
H.R. Marius( )
1995 Sjoerd Wartena, Enghlaan 6, NL- 1261 CC Blaricum
1999 Pieter Geertsma, Hubertusdonk 11, NL – 4707 TH Roosendaal
Peter Wessel ( )
1983 Ulf Lund Halvorsen, Orreveien 4, N – 3142 Borgheim
1995 Svein Jansverk, Salnesveien 334, N- 1642 Saltus
1997 Eric Sletten, Kuholmsveien 117, N- 4632 Kristiansand
1997 Per Hammer, Baerumsveien 152 B, N- 1342 Jar
1995 Cyril Brown, P.O.Box 1332, ZA – 3200 Pietermaritzburg
1995 Shirley Thurtell, P.O.Box 3170, ZA – 2115 Northcliff
1995 Bryan Thurtell, P.O.Box 3170, ZA – 2115 Northcliff
1996 Alic Kier, P.O.Box 85053, Emmarentia, ZA – 2029 Johannesburg
1996 Ella Kier, P.O.Box 85053, Emmarentia, ZA – 2029 Johannesburg
1998 Peter Clayton, 27 Marcal Crescent, Edenglen, ZA-1610 Edenvale
1999 Sam Grolman, POB 6297, ZA-1500 Benoni
Gaspar Nunez, Gran Via Corts., Catalanes 638-8, E – Barcelona
1993 Julio Sorjus, P.O.Box 90.003, E – 08080 Barcelona
1998 Francisco(Paco) Chapa, Avenida Marques de Campo 44, E-03700
Denia Alicante
1983 Felix Bauer, Salzfasstrasse 11, CH-6006 Luzern
Bo Sandmark ( )
1983 Bo Hennby, Algvagen 5, N-239 34 Skanoer
1988 Gustav Aberg Norra Skeppargatan 28D, S – 803 23 Gaevle
1996 Hugo Keller, Marsvagen 18a, S – 39351 Kalmar
1997 Bo Rudal, Vilstergatan 24, S-53152 Lidkoeping
1997 Cengiz Sonmez, Atatuerk Cad., Adil Kanun Ishani, K:5/16. 33070
Mersin.
J.R..”Buck” Rash ( )
USA.
1999 Tom Proctor, 4797 Hospital Drive, USA-48726 Cass City (MI)
1999 Don Wachholz, 8651 Brunswick Rd., USA-54548 Minocqwa
1999 Sydney Falk, 236 Callawassie Drive, USA-29910 Callawassie Island
(SC)
1999 Hugo van Perlstein, 32 Ridgewood Drive, USA-10570 Pleasantville
(NY)
1998 George Kawai, Higashi-Nihonbashi 3-4-15, Chou-ku, Tokyo 103
N.B. When this list is not correct, send your correction to: Richard Buss. Fax: +31 320 280 330
EEMA
Conference, Nazareth 2000, Group-Discussion:
Youth-Exchange
and Interfaith-Dialogue, September 8th 2000
1. Please discuss the contents of the panel-discussion in the context of your
experience in Rotary Youth-Exchange.
2. The monument on the picture, created by Ran Morin, Jerusalem, you will find in
Ramat Rahel, between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Discuss what you think the
monument symbolizes and what this could contribute to our issue.
3. In October 1999 more than 100 representatives from different religious institutions
met to discuss and communicate about interfaith dialogue with the following final message (dated 28.10.1999). Do you think this message can help us to formulate our own position and responsibility in “Youth-Exchange and Interfaith-Dialogue”?
CONCLUSIVE MESSAGE OF THE MEETING ON
INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE IN ROME, 1999
“MESSAGGIO
CONCLUSIVO DELL’ASSEMBLEA INTERRELIGIOSA.”
On the eve of the third millennium,[…] the representatives of different religious traditions who have gathered […] from many corners of the globe wish to share the fruits of our experiences during these days, the convictions that we have matured and the hope with which we face the future of our world.
We
are conscious of
the urgent need to confront together responsibly and courageously the
problems
and challenges of our modern world (i.e., poverty, racism, environmental
pollution, materialism, war and the proliferation of arms,
globalization,
AIDS, lack of medical care, breakdown of family and community,
marginalization
of women and children, etc.) to work together to affirm human dignity
as the source of human rights and their corresponding duties,
in the struggle for justice and peace for all;
to create a new spiritual consciousness for all humanity in accordance
with the religious traditions so that the principle of respect for
freedom of
religion and freedom of conscience may prevail.
We
are convinced that
our religious traditions have the necessary resources to overcome the
fragmentations
which we observe in the world and to foster mutual friendship and
respect between peoples.
We are aware that many tragic conflicts around the world are the result of the pragmatic but often unjust association of religions with nationalistic, political, economic or other interests.
We
are aware that
if we do not fulfill our obligation to live out the highest ideals of
our religious traditions,
then we shall be held liable for the consequences and we shall be judged
severely.
We
know that
the problems in the world are so great that we cannot solve them alone.
Therefore
there is an urgent need for interreligious collaboration.
We
are all aware that interreligious collaboration does not imply giving up our own
religious identity but is rather a journey of discovery.
We
learn to respect one another as members of the one human family.
We
learn to appreciate both our differences and the common values that bind us to
one another.
Therefore, we are convinced that we are able to work together to strive
to prevent conflict and to overcome the crises existing in different parts of
the world.
Collaboration among the different religions must be based on the
rejection of fanaticism, extremism and mutual antagonisms which lead to
violence.
We
are all aware of
The importance of education as a means for promoting mutual
understanding, cooperation and respect.
It
implies
supporting the family as a fundamental building-block of society,
helping the younger generation shape their own conscience,
underlining common fundamental moral and spiritual values.
cultivating a spiritual life (e.g., through prayer, meditation and
mindfulness according to the practice of each religious tradition),
using all means, including the mass media, to impart objective
information about each other’s religious tradition, making sure that text
books on history and religions give an objective presentation of religious
traditions so that individuals belonging to these traditions can recognize
themselves in that representation.
Everyone
is called to engage in this interreligious and intercultural dialogue
This
leads us to address to a number of appeals:
We
appeal to religious leaders to promote the spirit of dialogue
within their respective communities and to be ready to engage in dialogue
themselves with civil society at all levels.
We
appeal to all the leaders of the world whatever their field of influence:
to refuse to allow religion to be used to incite hatred and violence,
to refuse to allow religion to be used to justify discrimination,
to respect the role of religion in society at international, national and
local levels,
to eradicate poverty and strive for social and economic justice.
In
the spirit of Jubilee, we appeal to each one of us gathered here today
to seek forgiveness for past wrongs,
to promote reconciliation where the painful experiences of the past have
brought divisiveness and hatred and not let the past stand in the way of
mutual appreciation and love,
to commit ourselves to overcoming the gulf between rich and poor,
and to work for a world of true and lasting peace.
It
is with joy and a spirit of thanksgiving, most of us would say thanksgiving
especially to God, that those gathered here for the Interreligious Assmbly offer
to their brothers and sisters
this
message of hope.
Source:
L’Osservatore. Romano, 30.10.1999