30 March 2021
The global COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause devastation and uncertainty around the world. CISV International always puts the safety of the young people and volunteers who take part in our international in-person programmes first.
We have been working closely with our National/Promotional Associations and Chapters to understand whether we can offer any international in-person programmes this year and what our June-August programme season would be.
We have reached the heart-breaking conclusion that we must cancel our June-August international in-person programmes for the second year in a row. When we started planning for 2021 in September last year, we had been hopeful that the global situation would improve enough for a much smaller programme season to go-ahead. Our best case scenario was that 20% of our usual programme season would happen. As of today, that percentage is nearer 8% and decreasing daily.
We feel it is not reasonable or responsible to ask our National/Promotional Associations to carry on planning for a much reduced international programme season and increasing their financial risk if they need to cancel late.
We make this decision knowing that it will have a negative on CISV International’s own cash flow and finances. Our Leadership Team will be continuing their contingency planning and if you want to get in touch to discuss ways you could help contact us at international@cisv.org. We know that this will be disappointing for many of our loyal and dedicated CISV families, volunteers and friends. Together, the CISV family will be working hard over the coming months to offer alternatives that retain our unique CISV spirit.
December-January Programmes
We still plan to go ahead with this programme season. Our Leadership Team will continue to monitor the situation and have regular check-ins to assess the safety and feasibility of this programme season. We will be in touch with more information on this later in the year. For now, we will focus on supporting other engagement activities.
Alternatives to international programmes
We have developed three national programme models. We encourage Chapters to consider these models alongside any other alternatives they are planning.
Our Educational Programmes Committee has a dedicated working group who are developing other alternative programmes and initiatives for this year. There will be more information about this after the regional meetings finish in April.
Thank you to all of the amazing volunteers in our national and regional teams, who have been working tirelessly on either their in-person programmes or events, or getting actively creative with alternatives as they did last year with our Make 2020 Count campaign.
We know from that campaign that our Chapters and Associations around the world are ready and willing to create engaging, fun activities to connect CISVers, build friendships and inspire action for a more just and peaceful world.
Thank you for your continued trust, patience and support that you have shown us over the last year.