SCI Draft 5 Year Development Plan 1965/70

by Heinz Gabathuler (Jun 20, 2017)

"The evolution of SCI over the last forty years can be compared to the growth of a plant. The movement has spread from country to country and from continent to continent, taking root here and there. SCI has made various experiments in the field of voluntary work thanks to the energy and the generosity of men and women who deeply believe in SCI ideals and methods."

The introduction to this narrowly typewritten 36-page document titled Draft 5 Year Development Plan, issued by the then Zurich-based International Secretariat, begins with these clear and simple and nonetheless poetic sentences. It continues: "The time has come to assess our present state of development and plan what we want to achieve in the near future, and to ensure that we have the means to reach our proposed targets." The introduction ends with a kind of warning: "A constant assessment of progress must take place, with consequent adjustment, to prevent serious imbalance in the programme."

The justifications for making this plan may appear familiar to those who were involved into the elaboration of more recent Strategic plans in our movement. The structure (and not just the layout!) of the plan however is remarkably different from those more recent ones: More than half of the document is devoted to the situation of each branch and group and their respective workcamp programmes and exchange activities. Then follows an assessment of long-term service activities, the situation of conscientious objectors in some European countries and the US. At the end of the document, in a section on "special activities", the work with "uprooted groups" (e.g. War refugees), emergency action (an activity to be further developed even in Europe), and East West volunteer exchange, are treated.

I did not find the time to investigate more deeply into the background, as well as into the further career of this document. It is likely that it has been edited, and at least in large parts also written by Ralph Hegnauer who at that time was still in office as International Secretary. Only a few years after the plan had been written, most SCI branches in the Western world were facing big challenges by younger activists influenced by the protests of radical students and other activists: Against the Vietnam war, in favour of African-American emancipation, womens' liberation, but also by „sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll“. None of these tendencies were anticipated by the authors of the plan: For the Dutch branch, for instance, which only a few years later was completely newly founded whereas its older members left the movement under protest, it was predicted, in a purely technocratic manner, that "after a period of sonsolidation, between 1966 and 1968, and with increased staff, the branch should again expand its activities" (p. 9).

Things often develop more quickly and go in a radically different direction than the most perfect development plan is able to predict! There are several copies to be found in the Archives, the one presented here is particularly interesting, as I found it among unfiled documents from the „strategic planning“ process in 2001. However it must have come to the Archives from India (the handwritten address of the Indian branch in New Delhi on top right of the first page proves this) – maybe that's why the paper shows more signs of ageing than on the other copies...

Heinz Gabathuler, International Archives Coordinator

Reference:

A better preserved copy of the plan may be found under 40503.3 in the International Archives.