Strategic plan

Expanding Service Civil International (SCI) is driven by our belief in the transformative power of international volunteering. SCI aims to create a lasting impact on global peacebuilding, personal growth, and environmental sustainability. Through initiatives that foster inner peace, connect individuals with nature, and promote understanding among diverse cultures, we work towards a harmonious world. By expanding SCI, we empower individuals to find peace within themselves, forge a sustainable relationship with the environment, and build bridges of understanding with others. Together, we can create a ripple effect of positive change, inspiring individuals worldwide to become agents of peace.

SCI faces the negative impact of the Covid pandemic as well as a widening range of competing voluntary service activities offered by other organisations/companies and official agencies. Most SCI branches are managed by a small number of paid staff and volunteers. They have expressed the need to strengthen their competences in managing an organisation, organising projects, writing project applications and reports as well as fundraising. At the international level, there is a need to diversify sources of income to avoid becoming dependent upon a small number of donors.

SCI has extensive experience, tools, and resources on peacebuilding and peace education, which can be great resources for peace activities. They need to be further promoted and used within and outside the movement. In addition, due to the new world developments, there is a need to develop new tools and methods that are open and accessible to everyone. Activists play a crucial role in extending peace activities and organising them with high quality and impact on an international and local level. To achieve such an impact, activists and members have to be empowered, and then encouraged and supported to practice and share what they have learned. We encourage sustainable activism, practise what we preach by using three levels of peace (self, others and nature) by using for example environmentally-friendly means of transport, sustainable use of materials, as well as practising non-violent communication in our branches, with volunteers and with all of our partners outside the movement.

Note: With activists we refer to members of the SCI structure, activists and volunteers

Building on our more than 100-year history of volunteering for peace that makes SCI unique in this field, we seek to meet the ongoing and future developments in society in the areas of Climate and Social Justice. We will do this by being proactive and committed to continuing our work as an international volunteering network of change makers to the benefit of society and the planet. As Climate and Social Justice issues threaten world peace, SCI has a specific role to play in awareness raising and empowering people to face these challenges and promote peace, using an intersectional approach. We also seek to collaborate with other like minded IVS organisations to spread our peace message through volunteering actions.