What is this?
Remember the last time you met a CISV friend, and he told you: "Hey buddy, last night I was thinking, maybe some things in this organisation should really be run differently. What do you think about...". and then he tells you a really cool idea, how camps could be different, or how we could be structured in another way, and so on. Some of these ideas a great, some are lame, some have been there before, a few have been tried. But all of them are valuable. Unfortunately, these ideas never reach a broad audience.
This is where CISV devils comes in: We want to establish a forum for people who think outside the box, but also for those, who love to discuss, critized and develop ideas even further.
The CISV devils proposals could then be picked up by those, who are in the decision making bodies of the organisation, and eventually some would lead to new developments in CISV. Hopefully. On a less ambitious scale, I guess, NJRs, ReCos and others could bring these ideas to international meetings or workshops and rediscuss them on a face-to-face basis.
As for the name, it comes from the term "the devil's advocat" - Wikipedia explains it as follows: "...the term has come to mean a person who argues a position for the sake of arguing but does not necessarily believe in the argument; or who presents a counterargument for a position they do believe in, to another debater. This process can be used to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure." Obviously many proposals here do represent the opinion of the person submitting, hence probably not in such a radical or extreme manner.
If you still feel irritated, intimidated or insulted by the title of this project, please read the excellent discussion on proposal #13 and leave a comment there if you like. Also, there's an excellent video documentary on the "ultimate evil being", that I recommend.
Who is behind CISV devils? I am a long-time CISVer, who participated or staffed in most of CISVs programmes and have been an active volunteer on local, national and international level. For CISV devils I see myself mainly as the editor and administrator, although I do like posting proposals and commenting as well. A lot of input has come mostly from former or present-day IJRs (international junior reps); Teo, Marcos, Astrid, James - thank you.
Cheers, Nick.
