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EDUCATORS

From war to globalisation

Lars Moller

AIEJI was founded in the wake of World War II in order to support the relief work among the tens of thousands of homeless and orphaned children. Since then the organisation has become a worldwide, modern and professional association in social education

Street children in Riga. Children like these in Europe after World War II contributed to the creation of AIEJI

The social challenge after World War II was extreme. Europe was in ruins, and children who had nowhere else to go hid among the rubble. In the absence of parents and a home these children created their own laws and rules- for better or worse.

Something had to be done. The problem was unacceptable and crossed all boundaries. This became the start of AIEJI. “In several countries they gathered the children in large camps hoping to give them some form of social care and safe upbringing,” explains one of the Danish AIEJI pioneers, 62 year old Lars Steinov, who is now the Director of the Enghaven centre for drug addicts in Copenhagen. “It was the 24-hour care centre of its time- at a large scale. They had different forms of organisation and financing, but the project was the same, irrespective of whether the children came from one or the other side of the war,” Lars Steinov says.

The first step to AIEJI was taken in the late 1940s when the French High Commissioner in Germany wrote to his Dutch and German counterparts suggesting an international meeting
about the problems. The joint concern was one of social education: How to bring up the many thousand maladjusted post-war children and youth?

French frontrunners
In 1949 the European social educators met for the first time to exchange experiences as “educateurs”. Another meeting was held the following year. The frontrunners were the French social educators and their association, and it was through inspiration from them that social educators in other countries founded their own professional organisations. The next logical step was a joint, international confederation, and at the next meeting in Germany in 1951, AIEJI was a reality.

"At the same time the various children's camps and 24-hour care centres formed a corresponding association, FICE. But AIEJI is the absolutely only organisation in the world to focus solely on the profession of social educators,” says Lars Steinov.

It was a period with lots of ideas and activities that turned ideas into action. A common symbol was also needed, and without much hesitation the social educators chose to make a road sign from the forests around the German city of Freiburg their logo. The warning sign against leaping deer was well suited to the new movement that was to look after Europe’s “wild” youth. With the help of a designer the idea was refined into “The leaping gazelle” that is still AIEJI’s logo.

"In the beginning, AIEJI only concentrated on children and young people. But eventually the organisation also came to count social educators working with adults with physical and intellectual disabilities and mental disorders,” Lars Steinov says.

As a quite unique feature, the membership of AIEJI is made up from organisations, institutions and individuals. Any social educator in the world can sign up for membership and get a vote at the general assembly. Their votes are weighed differently, but a common denominator is that they are vividly committed to the mission of AIEJI: To unite social educators across the world to discuss the profession's practice, ethics and training.

Congress in Copenhagen in 1982
The Danish National Federation of Social Educators (SL) is a merger of four unions, and since SL’s foundation in 1981, SL has been a member of AIEJI. In 1981, the new SL union leadership had plenty to do with the merger. “Suddenly, SL realised that the old Union of Social Educators had promised to host a world congress. Now they were in a hurry because the congress was to be held the following year,” Lars Steinov reminisces. At that time he was chairman of the Copenhagen branch of SL.

“Since the congress was to be held in Copenhagen it was natural that we had a lot to do with it,” he says. “We helped to organise field trips and accommodation for hundreds of participants. We hosted the congress with great success. Eight hundred participants came to discuss how disabled children and poorly adjusted youth could be integrated with other children and young people,” he explains.

The theme of the 10th Congress in 1982 was “Between segregation and integration- the right to difference”.

Although Lars Steinov entered the international work through the backdoor, he ended up with an international career- first as international secretary with SL and later on at AIEJI. It was obvious that he and SL would participate in the next congress four years later. But that did not happen. “The 1986 congress was held in Jerusalem, but all the Nordic countries boycotted it because it was impossible to convince the Israeli to invite the Palestinians,” he says.

But SL was in New York in 1990 when AIEJI held its congress in the United States for the first time. “Suddenly, AIEJI was added American knowhow for how to organise a professional convention. It was a great success and a major step forward for the following congresses,” he says.

Under new leadership
Gradually Lars Steinov became really interested in the international work. When he was asked to run for the board at the next AIEJI congress, he had no doubts. In 1992, he left the union work in favour of a job as social educator and Director of a centre for drug addicts and was now able to channel all his organisational enthusiasm into AIEJI. In 1994, Lars Steinov was elected to AIEJI’s board, and has been a board member ever since. From 1997 he has been the secretary general of the organisation.

By now AIEJI was becoming truly global- and in 2001 an American president, Arlin Ness, was elected. With him, Lars Steinov began to modernise AIEJI; the organisation was streamlined and became more stringent with fixed routines for membership fee collection and meeting times. In 2005 SL Vice President Benny Andersen was elected to the board which chose him as president and Lars Steinov as secretary general.

A global-local agenda
AIEJI has regional offices in the Middle East, North America and Latin America as well as in Europe where the social educators now have a joint platform towards the European Commission. Lars Steinov is on his way to Russia to convince the Russians to join the AIEJI, and another potential destination is Anglophone Africa with a similar mission.

In the EU, one of the goals is to ensure a homogenous and high educational level for social educators and at the same time improve their opportunities to work in other European countries. “The whole idea is to promote the profession and the understanding that people like us can solve some important tasks for society,” says Lars Steinov.

Apart from strengthening social education as a profession, it is the goal of AIEJI’s board to profile the organisation and profession more politically at the global level. AIEJI’s board believe that for social educators politics and profession are closely related. In many countries social educators have to fight a war just to be able to do their work. “In many large Latin American cities social educators are almost frontline soldiers in a no man's land that is run by the local mafia and where not even the police dare go in,” explains Lars Steinov. “These fellow-educators need our political support and they need help to speak to their own governments. In those countries AIEJI’s political statements makes a difference, for instance the most recent Montevideo Declaration that is used as a lever,” he says.

This feature: Moller, Lars. (2008). From war to globalisation. Social Pedagogen, October 2008. pp. 14-17.