Annual Report 2009 of the Caravan 2000 International Federation.

Caravan 2000 International is governed by the Belgian Law dated 25th October 1919, as modified by the Law dated 6th December 1954.

The Association has its registered office at B-1000 Brussels, rue du Pène 2.

The coordination office of the Federation is located in D-61440 Oberursel, Am Borkenberg 11, Germany.

On the March 19, 2009 the General Assembly took place in Arras. The outgoing Executive Board was exonerated and the new one was elected.

During the year 2009 the board met once in May in Gdansk, Poland and had three skype meetings.

The main activities of the members in 2009 were:

-18-22 March 2009, Arras, France : Seminar : « Family at the heart of Social Work in Europe ».

Participants:

• ca. 35 persons, among them 23 people coming from abroad.
• 9 represented nationalities (France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italia, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Turkey).
• 17 represented organisations, among them 11 structures working with disabled people and 6 with socially disadvantaged people. The seminar organisation has alternated institution visits, participants’ organisation presentations and workshops.

The program has centred on 3 main lines:

• The family over the age of the child.
• Evolution of the hosting modes.
• Support to parentality.

The debates focused mainly on the question of the role and the place of the family with disabled relatives, its relationships with the institutions of services or care and the social evolution that makes over this relationships.

As a conclusion, it appears that the family mediation is a encouraged practice in Europe and there is a diversification of answers to help these families in difficulties, in accordance with the family’s needs and/or choices of life.

-17-24 May 2009, Gdańsk, Poland, the artistic festival International Meetings with Creativity of People with Intellectual Disability “World not Known Enough”.

The festival gathered over 120 artists from France, Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden.

The festival is organized every other year and is the important and recognized event in the cultural landscape of Gdańsk and Pomorskie Region in Poland. The festival brings together professional and non-professional artists of different art domains who have the unique occasion to work together during this week. The festival is organized under the honorary patronage of the the Marshal of Pomorskie Region and the Mayor of Gdańsk and under the auspices of the Caravan 2000.

This year the opening ceremony took place in the Baltic Philharmonic Hall in the presence of Vive Mayor of Gdańsk Mrs. Ewa Kamińska. The Vita Activa orchestra was accompanied by three soloists – famous Polish artists. The exhibition of paintings and photography was presented in the foyer of the Philharmonic Hall.

During the week 18th – 22th May 2009 six artistic workshops took place.

One of the most spectacular events of the festival was the culinary show – the famous Polish chef Joseph Seeletso, a TV celebrity, shared his cooking show with people with disability. The greatest attraction of the festival was the Saturday evening show where “Zakopower” – famous Polish folk band, the star of the evening was accompanied by Remont Pomp – integrative musical & rhythm group from Gdańsk. The festival ended with the PARADE – happening, march of the participants of workshops in artistic pageant accompanied by the music of drums along the Long Street to the Long Market completed with the artistic show prepared by the participants of the workshops and professional artists.

-May, 2009, Gdańsk, Poland, a common project „Open Support” of IB Behindertehilfe Hessen and PSOUU Gdansk was ended.

During two years of the project PSOUU basing on the experiences of IB has established new forms of support for the families and people with intellectual disability. The leasure lime activities club was run and a wide range of offers of spending time was addressed to the families and to the people with disabilities.

-October, 2009, Jerusalem, Israel. Delegation from German association I.B. visited AKIM-Jerusalem.

During October, after the High Holidays, a delegation of members of the IB Association from the Frankfurt region, Germany visited AKIM-Jerusalem. This one-week visit was in return to the delegation AKIM-Jerusalem sent to Germany in November of 2008. The German delegation consisted of professionals similar to the AKIM-Jerusalem professionals, with whom they met, creating fertile ground for interesting exchanges on day-to-day challenges, experiences and practices.

The week was divided into professional visits, discussions and tourism. Every day the German visitors were taken to apartments, occupational placements, leisure time programs run by AKIM-Jerusalem and by other associations working in both the Jewish and Moslem sectors of Jerusalem. The visitors also toured the Holy sites, “Yad Vashem” (Holocaust) museum, Massada, the Dead Sea and Tel Aviv.

-26-28 Octobrer 2009: Rodalben (Germany) “Rediscover” Meeting.

German – French staff meeting organised by IB Jugendheim Mülhkopf Participants : 5 people from EPDEF and 4 people from Internationaler Bund.

The EPDEF is in partenrship with the IB Jugendheim Rodalben since 1996. In 2004, Caravane 2000 France was appointed as the French project owner.

The partnership deals with a annual youth exchange between girls, aged from 12 to 18, placed in a Children home of EPDEF and boys, aged from 16 to 19, in great social difficulties (young delinquency, violence, behavior disorders, school drop-out), placed in a Community Home with Education. Because of changes in partner institutions, it has been decided commonly to set up meetings, bringing together both educative teams, in order to “discover again” the possibilities to reactivate cooperation.

-Foreign Volunteers Program.

Some members of the Caravan are involved in the EVS program.

In 2009, our Israeli partner AKIM Jerusalem and Polish PSOUU, Gdansk were hosting foreign volunteers.

In Israel volunteers came from the Czech Republic, Germany, USA, Finland, Switzerland, Canada, Holland, Belgium, Peru, Korea and Denmark staying for a minimum of 3 months, although many stayed for far longer. On average, AKIM-Jerusalem has 10 volunteers working at any one time.

In Poland volunteers came from Germany, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Spain, Ukraine, Austria. There are 6 volunteers in Gdansk at a time. They stay for 6 or 10 months in Poland. They are involved in the daily activities of the organisations they work with.

-Network application.

Thanks to our German partners during the year 2009 an application for development of our network was prepared and submitted in February 2010 to the German Agency of the Youth in Action programme.

-Caravan homepage.

The layout and demo version of our new website has been prepared by French and Polish members. The work will be continued within the network project.

Hadamar 18 March 2010