CCIVS - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Co-ordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service or CCIVS began in its modern form in 1920. The idea was the result of a meeting of a group of Europeans following the First World War (1914-1918). They decided that they had to do something active to try to deal with both the dreadful effects of the war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

, and to find a way to remove the causes of conflict.

Volunteers from former enemy countries were invited to rebuild a village in France, which had been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting. The international group of volunteers built houses and lived together in an international community. Out of this group emerged the idea of Service Civil International

Service Civil International

Service Civil International is an international non-governmental voluntary service organisation and peace movement with 43 branches and groups worldwide...

.

After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, new organisations sprang up to help reconstruct Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, both physically and in terms of bringing former enemy populations together. These new organisations needed co-ordination. With the support of the recently established United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

), the CCIVS was created in 1948.

Over the following 50 years, CCIVS expanded its membership from a West-European base to include youth movements in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

and volunteer organisations in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

Countries and Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

External links of Member organizations

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.