Youth Knowledge # 25 THE HISTORY OF YOUTH WORK IN EUROPE Why have political, social or environmental causes often been behind the origin and evolution of youth organisations? Have other ideas been influential too? Why have some organisations expanded well beyond their countries of origin? To what extent have they held firm to their original 7 Volume – history in Europe The work of youth values and purpose, and to what extent have they adapted and evolved in changing circumstances? How have they related to youth policy or youth work agendas? How vulnerable have they been to ideology, context or political influences? Which of their characteristics have persisted over time? These are some of the questions that are explored in this book, which draws on contributions from the last seminar on the history of transnational youth organisations and their relation to youth work today. This book has three parts. The first explores the evolution of transnational youth organisations and movements over the past 100 years. The second adds two more country histories of youth work to the body of knowledge already established in earlier volumes in the series. The third and final part focuses on 12 “trilemmas” and reflections that have emerged from the 10-year History of Youth Work in Europe project. This anchors an invitation to the youth work community to consider and debate each trilemma, independently and in relation to each other, in the context of both the local environments of youth work delivery and across the wider European youth policy context, in anticipation of the 3rd European Youth Work Convention. PREMS 096319 http://youth-partnership-eu.coe.int [email protected] ENG The Council of Europe is the continent’s leading human The Member States of the European Union have decided rights organisation. It comprises 47 member states, to link together their know-how, resources and destinies. Volume 7 Pan-European and transnational including all members of the European Union. All Together, they have built a zone of stability, democracy youth organisations – Council of Europe member states have signed up to the and sustainable development whilst maintaining cultural diversity, tolerance and individual freedoms. The overall lessons learned from the history project European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty designed The European Union is committed to sharing its to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law. achievements and its values with countries and peoples The European Court of Human Rights oversees the beyond its borders. implementation of the Convention in the member states. www.coe.int http://europa.eu http://book.coe.int ISBN 978-92-871-8965-3 €34/US$78 9 789287 189653 THE HISTORY OF YOUTH WORK IN EUROPE Pan-European and transnational youth organisations The overall lessons learned from the history project Volume 7 Howard Williamson and Tanya Basarab (eds) Council of Europe and European Commission The opinions expressed in this work, commissioned by the European Union– Council of Europe youth partnership, are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of either of the partner institutions, their member states or the organisations co-operating with them. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated, reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic (CD-Rom, internet, etc.) or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the Directorate of Communication (F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex or [email protected]). Cover design: Documents and Publications Production Department (SPDP), Council of Europe Cover photo: Archiv der Arbeiterjugendbewegung, Germany – PB Ziberg, Rosette 6 Layout: Jouve , Paris Council of Europe Publishing F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex http://book.coe.int ISBN 978-92-871-8965-3 © European Commission and Council of Europe, December 2019 Printed at the Council of Europe Contents PREFACE 5 Tanya Basarab, Hanjo Schild and Jan Vanhee INTRODUCTION – THE CHAPTERS AND SOME OVERARCHING OBSERVATIONS 9 Howard Williamson and Filip Coussée CHAPTER 1 – AIESEC 17 Tanja Dibou CHAPTER 2 – EUROPEAN FEDERATION FOR INTERCULTURAL LEARNING (EFIL) 29 Elisa Briga CHAPTER 3 – THE EUROPEAN CONFEDERATION OF YOUTH CLUBS 43 Ioana Şurubaru CHAPTER 4 – DON BOSCO YOUTH-NET – DEVELOPING A EUROPEAN YOUTH WORK ORGANISATION THROUGH YOUTH PARTICIPATION AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH, 1841-2000 51 Rein Meus CHAPTER 5 – WORLD SCOUTING: A CENTURY OF WORK FOR YOUTH EMPOWERMENT 63 Eduard Vallory CHAPTER 6 – HISTORY OF THE RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT YOUTH 91 Vesselina Valcheva Dimitrova CHAPTER 7 – INTERNATIONAL YOUNG NATUREFRIENDS 103 Petre Mrkev CHAPTER 8 – THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S INTERNATIONAL AWARD 111 Amy Pearce and Melek De-Wint CHAPTER 9 – INTERNATIONAL FALCON MOVEMENT – SOCIALIST EDUCATION INTERNATIONAL (IFM-SEI): A HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES OF THE 20TH CENTURY 127 Sabine Troitzsch CHAPTER 10 – EUROPE IN THE INTERWAR YEARS: YOUTH ORGANISATIONS OF AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES 139 Eli Pilve, Marti Taru, Simona Sglavo CHAPTER 11 – THE KOMSOMOL AND YOUTH ORGANISATIONS IN BELARUS 153 Olga Khabibulina CHAPTER 12 – THE TURBULENT HISTORY OF YOUTH WORK IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 159 Lana Pasic CHAPTER 13 – YOUTH WORK IN UKRAINE: FROM SOVIET MODEL TO INTERNATIONAL INTEGRATION 175 Yevgeniy Borodin CHAPTER 14 – REFLECTIVE TRIALOGUE: CONCLUSIONS FROM THE HISTORY PROJECT – 12 TRILEMMAS FOR YOUTH WORK 191 Howard Williamson and Filip Coussée NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 211 Page 3 Preface Ten years and a community of people building the grounds for an informed youth work identity Tanya Basarab, Hanjo Schild and Jan Vanhee ver the past 10 years we have been exploring with fervour and passion the his- tory of youth work in Europe and beyond. This project has encouraged people O to think about the roots of youth work and to look for “the” history of youth work in their own country. As we know history is very much a product of subjective interpretation and there are always many angles to it. It is a continuous search for facts, stories, sources, reasons and narratives around which individuals advance their own arguments and perspectives. In addition to the search for individual histories, an attempt was made to trace or clarify some trends that transcend boundaries. This work yielded seven volumes of knowledge books with the country stories as well as stories of institutions, associations and movements. We have attempted to understand the roots and reasons at the foundation of youth work initiatives, what connections were made to the context in which youth work structures were born and developed at country or international level. We looked at how youth work has evolved in relation to social work, social pedagogy, formal and non-formal education and learning, all the while exploring the pull and push factors that have sometimes provided youth work with a more autonomous identity and shape or, at other times, subordinated it to wider agendas of the time. The project has also coincided with, and contributed to, an important opening in the European policy field to shaping an open and inclusive European discourse around the identity and purpose of youth work. The History workshops provided critical knowledge for the two European Youth Work Conventions and hopefully the knowledge base of the overall history project will make a similar contribution to the third convention. In addition, that knowledge has also helped to build common ground for some transformative European youth policy frameworks, including the Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)4 on youth work and the European Union Quality Development of Youth Work. The merit of the history project lies in, among other things, the fact that we brought youth workers, researchers and aca- demics, and policy makers together to reflect jointly with us on critical issues that shape, influence and develop youth work. Despite the lack of a rigid definition and thanks to its inclusive and incredibly resilient and adaptable nature, youth work has galvanised some of the most humanist, caring, inspiring and purpose-driven communities throughout times. The work of recording the way those groups came together and added their piece to today’s story of youth work is anything but complete. Systematic knowledge on youth work in Europe has only recently started to be analysed and further investment is needed in working with the knowledge already collected to anchor youth work practice in evidence and theoretical approaches – a crucial process for developing fields of professional practice. We invite policy makers, academics, practitioners and Page 5 their associations and, critically, young activists themselves to continue the work that we started. For example, we dream that PhD students will further investigate this topic and, together with us (youth workers and policy makers), consider which lessons can be learned from the past that help to develop and advance youth work today, what are the unique features that have made youth work so resilient and attractive to young people, how youth work has responded (or not) to the critical experiences and questions young people have faced in different times and how we can share with society at large the importance of continuing to support this community in its free spaces to experiment in democracy and in its social and educational purposes. It is also to be explored where youth work has failed, where it was instrumentalised by policy, and where it did not attract or reach out to more young people. The history of youth work in Europe is so diverse and closely related to what is going on in society. The ability to remember people as well as facts or circumstances, to touch items that have been (nearly) forgotten or were at risk of getting lost or excluded are crucial elements for social groups, social processes and humanity in general.