Who We Are / Our History
100 Years of International Voluntary
Service
A Century of Issues, Integrity and Engagement
The First World War, the so-called “war to end all wars” devastated Europe and much of the globe. Colonial powers shipped in battalions from their empires to join swathes of working-class lads from the “home” countries to die alongside them in the killing fields of France. Altogether some seventy million were under arms of whom nine million perished together with seven million civilians who were killed.
1948
CCIVS is born
After the Second World War many non-governmental agencies all over Europe began to be active in reconstruction and in bringing relief to the many refugees forced to flee their homelands. For instance the Christian Movement for Peace (CMP) which had started in 1923 as …
1920-1931
Birth of the IVS movement
The international voluntary service movement was born in 1920 at a meeting at a school in Bilthoven, Netherlands, appropriately enough named het Werkplaats. A meeting one year earlier had established the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR).
1950
The First Secretaries
For the first couple of years, the CoCo was run by several not very long term volunteers. The head of CoCo/CCIVS was not called Director until the time of Jean-Michel Bazinet (1964).
In 1950 Willy Begert, who had been an experienced workcamp…
1948-1959
Post War Reconstruction and Peace Building
“As a world coordination centre for the workcamp movement, CoCo came as a disappointment to some. They expected smooth professionals…
1972-1980
New Contacts between East and West, North and South
“We did just that, arguing that volunteer service should not be… a complement, a cheap addition to “proper” technical assistance, but …
1960-1971
Cold War, Independance and the Growth of Long Term “Development” Volunteer
“Creative chaos, best describes the state of our office during the early 1960s when Arthur Gillette and I were running things. We had a constant…
1992-2009
Expansion in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe
The famous writer, Albert Camus, who was a supporter of SCI, commented on the volunteers: “A writer who wants to be a witness sometimes feels he is lonely…
1981-1991
Campaign for Disarmament and against Racism
“Today voluntary service is not just a desirable activity but it is an activity that is badly needed. It is needed more than ever before in the field of…
2019 -Current
Navigating New Challenges: CCIVS During the Pandemic and Beyond
The C-19 pandemic brought volunteer exchange to a halt in 2020 and 2021, with a slight recovery in 2022. During 2020 many organisations …
2009-2019
A New Era of Adaptation: CCIVS in the 21st Century
At the turn of the 21st century, IVS had to adapt again to the new trends provoked still by the hegemonic and imperialistic approach of most industrialised nations which led to the…
