What is a CISV International Village?

Village is a 4 weeks international camp unique to CISV. Delegations of 2 boys and 2 girls (age 11) from 12 countries and the host staff participate in a multicultural camp featuring experiential education activities and emphasizing global friendship, cross cultural communication and cooperative living. Village participants come to understand how they are alike and to celebrate their differences. A key component of this entire experience is the home stay where they will stay with the local families to understand the Singaporean Culture!

Participating Countries: Canada, Costa Rica, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, & Vietnam

Village Hosting Dates (2 Home Stay weekends):
1. TBC

What is a CISV International Village ?

Village is a 4 week international camp unique to CISV. Delegations of 2 boys and 2 girls
(age 11) with a leader (minimum age 21) from 12 nations plus six Junior Counsellors – JCs
– (age 16-17) from five nations and the host staff participate in a multicultural camp
featuring experiential education activities and emphasizing global friendship, cross
cultural communication and cooperative living. Village participants come to understand
how they are alike and to celebrate their differences.

The Goals of a Village Include:
❖ Develop Intercultural Competence
❖ Build an inclusive community through friendship
❖ Develop positive attitudes towards others
❖ Develop an interest in peace education

Upon arrival in Singapore, delegations will be met at the airport/station by host families.
Delegates will be placed with host families (all 4 together, or 2 and 2 together). Leaders and JCs will go to the site for orientation. Delegates will also stay with host families during Leaders’ Week-end in the middle of the village.
It is a tradition for the delegates to give both of their host families a small gift. An inexpensive souvenir from your country is perfect (so 2 gifts for 2 different home-stays).

Communication

To preserve the Village atmosphere, communication between the participants and the outer world is allowed only for emergency reasons. We ask the parents not to call the kids during camp, due to risk of homesickness. This is a standard CISV Village rule. Parents will be able to send emails to their kids using either your leader´s email address or the camp one: enquiries@CISV-SG.org. Please put your delegate’s name and country in the subject of the message. Of course, regular post, addressed to the recipient at the Village address is fine too. If the children want to send a greeting to their family we suggest regular mail, buying stamps etc that will be available at the camp shop. It is suggested that the parents write a letter to their child and give it to their leader to give to the child at some point during the Village. There will be a computer with internet access that can be used by leaders. They will stay in touch with you during camp. However don’t forget that your leader has duties in the camp. They will be busy most of the time and we have many countries to communicate to so maybe it will be hard for your leader to answer often! Except for staff, leaders JCs, mobile phone use is strictly forbidden at the campsite. However we’ll ask leaders and JCs to reduce the use of your cellphones during camp.

National Nights

We would like you (for all of the delegations) to prepare an evening about your country.
It can be a show, a play, maybe some dances, music, pictures – you decide. The purpose is that you give everyone else at the village an idea of what your country is like!
We ask you to prepare and bring 80 scrapbooks for everyone, sharing a bit about the delegation and your country so we can keep something to remember you by. This goes for all of the JCs as well. We strongly recommend having extras to give to host families, at Open Day etc. If you plan to cook for national night we would like you to send an email in advance and tell us what you would need for that. The kitchen staff will do what they can and shop what you need. We will charge you for the used amount. If not you will need to bring the food and ingredients from your home country.

Village 

Village is a four-week international camp unique to CISV. Delegations of two boys and two girls (age 11) with a leader (minimum age 21) from 10 to 12 nations plus six Junior Counsellors – JCs – (age 16-17) from five nations and the host staff participate in a multi-cultural camp featuring experiential education activities and emphasising global friendship, cross/cultural communication and cooperative living. Village participants come to understand how they are alike and to celebrate their differences.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROGRAMME

• Eleven-year-olds readily accept new experiences. They can enjoy living with many nationalities and many languages
• Eleven-year-olds are active, in contrast to the intellectual, philosophical adolescent
• Eleven-year-olds easily communicate with other children. In the absence of a common language, they spontaneously use sign language, drawing and drama. At their age they do not fear making mistakes and quickly try out any newly learned words or phrases
• Eleven-year-olds are adaptable. They are relatively free from inner barriers and prejudice
• Eleven-year-olds are old enough to carry the stamp of their respective cultures. They represent enough differences to give a real international character to the Village. They easily work with authority. They have not yet reached the characteristic rebellion of adolescence
• Eleven-year-olds are old enough to be away from home for as long as four weeks without being homesick

HOW VILLAGE DEVELOPED AND IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF CISV

Village as the Basis of CISV by Doris Twitchell Allen, Founder of CISV

During and after World War I, groups of citizens challenged the traditional concept of war as an honourable way to assert national rights. Examples are Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, founded in 1915, and Fellowship of Reconciliation, founded in 1915. In 1945, as a protest against the suffering and waste of World War II, 50 nations established the United Nations based on the concept of a “world community”. In August 1946, another concept was added, namely, that education for such a community should start with the children, to grow up aware of “belonging” to humans around the world.

For such education an organisation was formed, Children’s International Summer Villages, Inc. (CISV). It was organized to give life to the idea that education for peace should start with children. Its method of education is “learning through doing”; it is an action process. Children from different countries live together in a camp-like Village for four weeks, and each Village is a veritable miniature world.

Especially significant is the limitation of the size of the Village to forty-eight children to permit establishing close friendships. Equally important is the opportunity to practise solving problems of daily living in the children’s parliamentary sessions. In the face of 7 to 10 different languages, instead of aimlessly arguing or fighting, these children learn to discuss situations. Such remarks as the following from an 11 year old Norwegian boy may be heard: “I say that before we talk of punishment, we should be sure that everyone knows what the rules are.”

Language is handled in a natural way by 11-year-olds. They spontaneously fall into sign language, demonstrations and drawings. One of the most interesting research findings has been that communication seems to have struck a deeper level in situations where there has not been a common language. Warm human feelings seem to take over in face of a language area deficiency. One thing is certain. Experience at a CISV activity stimulates a desire for further language learning, after the Village.

The Village process for 11-year-olds has evolved and developed over the years since it emerged in 1951. It gave CISV its name, and set the basic standards for the work of the organisation.

SELECTION OF LEADERS

In CISV, people in a position of responsibility are the guardians of other people’s children. We have a responsibility to participants, their parents, the law and to ourselves, to be very careful in choosing the people who take on programme responsibility and assume a guardianship role. We must also be conscious of, and careful about, anyone who comes into contact with participants.

With the exception of international Seminar Camp staff (who are selected by the Regional Delivery Teams for Educational Programmes), this responsibility lies entirely with the NA/Chapter. Each NA/Chapter must appoint a representative or committee responsible for selecting and screening all of the people who will be in contact with participants.

CISV has established some guidelines and some specific procedures to make our selection process as fair and as safe as we reasonably can. They set out, in general terms, who may be considered an appropriate candidate and what kinds of factors should/can be considered when reviewing applications.

In addition to these selection guidelines, CISV International has also established specific procedures appropriate to the different responsibilities which help us to keep a record of the decisions made and candidates selected. These procedures are set out below for each type of programme responsibility and must be applied consistently throughout the organization. Unless otherwise indicated, they apply to all CISV’s international programmes and it is recommended that similar procedures be adopted by NAs for national and local programmes and activities.

Though it is not forbidden to select a leader who is the parent, relative or teacher of a delegate, it is discouraged as pre-existing relationships can create challenging group dynamics within delegations, such as perceptions of favouritism. When no other option is possible, the sending Chapter should always discuss the matter thoroughly with the leader first.

QUALIFICATIONS

The general responsibilities of these positions are set out in the Role Profiles section of the Programme Guide. Any applicant selected must have appropriate skills and background.

GENDER

Interchange leaders and junior leaders must be of the sex stated on the Friendly Intent Form. For other programmes, NAs are asked to make best efforts to find leaders who are of the sex recommended on the programme invitation (if such a recommendation is made).

AGE REQUIREMENTS

The following rules must be observed and can be found in InfoFile C-03 Programme Basic Rules. Leaders must be the proper age on the day they leave for the programme, or, in the case of the host delegation leader, on the first day of hosting.

Specifically:

• All adult leaders must be at least 21 years old
• All Interchange junior leaders must be at least 18 years old, and a minimum of four years older than the oldest participant age allowed for the assigned Interchange age group

REFERENCES

Anyone applying for a position of programme responsibility (including staff, leaders, JCs, junior staff/leaders) must arrange for two references to be submitted on their behalf. The NA should refer the applicant to the Reference Form. The applicant should fill in the ’Section 1 Applicant Information‘ and send it to their two referees, along with the name and address of the CISV member, who is responsible for staff selection. The referees should send the completed reference forms directly to that person. The form can be filled in electronically, but must be printed out and signed.

Even if the person has served as staff member or leader before, they must provide references each year that they apply for a staff/leader position. Previous references can be used if the referee confirms that the information is still valid. There is a space at the end of the Reference Form for a referee to sign to confirm that they have given a previous reference, which is unchanged.

POLICE RECORDS CHECK

Police checks are required for all staff/leaders (aged 18+) at all CISV International programme and activities.

What is meant by Police Check?

The terms used and the procedures will vary from country to country. For example, in some countries, with the individual’s consent, the organization can obtain the information directly from the police. In other countries, the individual has to make the request personally. In some countries the police or other authorities may only give information about situations where the individual has been convicted (found guilty) of an offence. In other countries, they might also give information about arrests or where an investigation is underway.

CISV has to work with the best information we can obtain according to national laws and procedures. What is essential to find out is whether an applicant has a criminal record of convictions or arrests, which would make them unsuitable to take on a role of trust with children and youth in a CISV programme.

More details at http://www.cisv.org/cisv-programmes/village/?Village%20programme