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International Voluntary Services
Gegründet1953
GründerPrivate individuals, especially those from Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker Churches
Dissolved2002
TypPrivate international development organization
Standort
Area served
39 countries
MethodVolunteerism

International Voluntary Services, Inc. (IVS) was a private, non-profit corporation for benevolent, charitable, and educational purposes chartered under the laws of the District of Columbia in 1953 to place volunteers in international humanitarian and development projects.[1] From its founding until its dissolution in 2002, IVS placed volunteers in 39 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Its largest and longest programs were in South Vietnam, Laos, Algeria, and Bangladesh. Although the organization's roots were grounded in part in Christian pacifism, it operated on a nonsectarian basis, accepting volunteers regardless of their religious beliefs or nationality.[2], [3] Over its lifetime, the IVS program evolved from the placement of only American citizen volunteers to placement of internationally-recruited volunteers and then in later years to recruitment of local volunteers from within the country being assisted. Elements of the IVS program model have been adopted by the U.S. Peace Corps and many present day non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Sections below discuss the IVS program model, activities over time, and legacy.[1]

Much of this article is based on two books on the IVS experience: The Fortunate Few: IVS Volunteers From Asia To The Andes by Thierry Sagnier and A Legacy Of America's Global Volunteerism - International Voluntary Services (1953-2002) edited by Gary Alex, Mike Chilton, and Frederic C. Benson. Much documentation on IVS is available in the IVS Collection of the Mennonite Church USA Archives, 3145 Benham Ave., Elkhart, IN 46517.

Note: “IVS” is also used as a generic acronym for “international voluntary service” and for a U;K.-based service organization of the same name.

Founding of International Voluntary Services (IVS)

IVS was founded and its organization and program heavily influenced by: 1) staff of the new U.S, foreign assistance agency in 1953; 2) private individuals from traditional peace churches and other groups; and 3 its first Executive Director.[1]

The 1948 Marshall Plan for direct U.S. assistance to Europe for recovery after World War II proved highly successful. President Truman in his 1949 inauguration speech proposed to extend the Marshall Plan concept with a “Four Point” program, including an ambitious fourth point for “a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.” A Technical Cooperation Administration (TCA) was charged with implementing this program.

Two men in the newly created TCA, Stanley Andrews and Dale D. Clarke, saw the potential to tap talents of the religious community for the new initiative. Andrews identified about 75 religious organizations with programs around the world that understood local conditions and were supported by American citizens, who were willing to work for the common good. He felt they could come together to form a non-profit organization to send young people out to work in village development activities. Andrews also recognized the need to assist in bringing such an organization into reality and assigned Dale Clark to this task.[1]

Clark accepted this assignment and met with an interested group that included: Mennonite Central Committee representative William Snyder, W. Harold Rowe of the Brethren Service Committee, and Benjamin Bushong, Director of the Brethren’s Heifer Project. Clark outlined the concept and arranged an initial planning meeting. At that planning meeting (date unknown), Clark stressed the need for an interdenominational approach adapted to needs of the Point Four Program and provided the group with a copy of the Near East Foundation charter to use as a model.[1]  The church representatives agreed that there was a role for young, well-trained agriculturalists and nurses to work in rural villages of developing nations.

IVS’s corporate charter, dated February 16, 1953, stated as its first objective “to utilize the services of volunteers on an organized basis to combat hunger, poverty, disease, and illiteracy in the underdeveloped areas of the world and thereby further the peace, happiness and prosperity of the peoples thereof.” [4] Arrangements for initial projects in Egypt and Iraq were completed by July, when the first meeting of the IVS Board of Directors confirmed the concepts for the new organization. IVS would be a “people-to-people” program where local people were participants in IVS projects and not just recipients of foreign assistance and that it should remain independent and private in nature.

An Operations Advisory Committee (OAC) set up to guide institutional and program development included, in addition to Row, Snyder, and Bushong: Roy A. Burkhart of World Neighbors, John H. Reisner of Agricultural Missions, Inc. and former dean of an agricultural college in China, Franklin S. Harris of Salt Lake City, E.B. Evans of Prairie View A & M College, Captain William H. Tuck, director general of international refugees during World War II, Carl C. Taylor of the Ford Foundation, and Margaret Hickey, an attorney, journalist, and women's rights activist.[1] While a diverse group, key leadership and program design came from representatives of three traditional “peace churches”: the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Mennonites, and the Church of the Brethren. Because the three churches opposed war, as an alternative to military service, their members sought Conscientious Objector status so volunteers could serve in various Alternative Service roles in lieu of military service. This and their humanitarian service ethic gave them a wealth of experience in international work, experience that proved very relevant to the IVS agenda.

Managing the fledgling IVS organization fell to its first Executive Director, John S. Noffsinger, who assumed the position in 1953 and served until he left to work at the new Peace Corps in 1961. Noffsinger had spent two years assigned to a town in the far northeastern province of Cagayan of the Philippines under an American colonial program to establish a Philippine public education system.[5] This program relied on youthful American teachers that came to be called “Thomasites” after the ship, the USS Thomas, that brought about 500 of these young Americans to Manila in 1901. After his two years in the Philippines, Noffsinger received a Ph.D. in Education from Columbia University and spent his adult working life in education. He had retired by 1953 but retained a desire to assist people overseas. His experience as a teacher in the Philippines and as an educator were foundational in his shaping the IVS, and later the Peace Corps, programs.

1st Decade Program (1953–1962) - Start Up

IVS’s initial program model was that of sending teams of volunteers for two-year assignments to work on rural development from training centers supported by the U.S. International Cooperation Administration (Egypt, Iraq, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam).[6] As an example, the Iraq program had a team including: a crop production volunteer, livestock volunteer, two home economics volunteers, two farm equipment/engineering volunteers, and a Country Team Leader. Volunteers were mostly young Americans with agriculture and rural backgrounds supervised by a senior Country Team Leader.[1] Volunteers were people who chose to work in a foreign country usually at a grass roots level for nominal pay for two years. They were required to possess a skill useful to local people, learn the local language, develop an understanding of the local culture, and work on a person-to-person basis.[7] The model was considered highly effective.

As IVS entered the 1960s, the program model evolved from placing multiple volunteers together on teams to that of individual volunteer placements. Rural development and agriculture remained a focus, but education assignments also became important (Laos, Liberia, Algeria) and assignments diversified into public health and other fields. The program model continued – largely, but not exclusively – to support U.S. government development agency programs (Laos, Vietnam, Morocco, Algeria, Bangladesh, Congo).[1] IVS began recruiting non-American volunteers and, by the early 1970s, committed to increasing multinational recruitment of volunteers, staff, and board members. The U.S. Peace Corps adopted the IVS program model for its American volunteer assignments and has continued it for sixty years.[2]

The IVS program changed substantially in the late 1970s and early 1980s as IVS committed to diversifying its funding and becoming more independent of the U.S. Government in its development activities. Program activities became much more diverse.[1] Some U.S. Government funding continued for specific and comprehensive country projects including operating costs, construction, materials, training, and other inputs complementing volunteer services (Sudan, Bangladesh, Botswana). At the same time, a change in USAID policy provided central program funding for NGOs and allowed IVS to independently launch project activities in countries of its choice (Mauritania, Honduras, Indonesia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Papua New Guinea, Sudan). These programs generally involved fewer and more experienced volunteers working with partner organizations that had resources needed to support volunteer activities. Increasing numbers of staff and volunteers were recruited from outside the U.S. IVS was forced to compete for funding with other NGOs, many of which were engaged in economic development and relief work. Consequently, cost effectiveness and program flexibility became major considerations.

In the 1980s, IVS transitioned its program model to the use of skilled local volunteers supported by a few international professionals. By the end of the decade, over 80 percent of IVS staff and volunteers were host country nationals or internationals. IVS/Bangladesh to some extent pioneered this with the establishment of a National Volunteer Program for professionals and a Village Volunteer Program for community service workers implementing literacy, disaster preparedness, agriculture, health, organization development, and micro-credit projects.[1] Other programs in Ecuador, Bolivia, Botswana, Caribbean, and Zimbabwe also used local volunteers extensively. Programs emphasized local organizational capacity development, often working independently with local NGOs. IVS committed to participatory approaches, targeting basic human needs and poverty reduction, and empowering local people by strengthening local organizations. Some program direction changes were self-initiated, while others were a pragmatic attempt to keep up with changing priorities for USAID, which moved away from the agriculture and rural development programs that had been an emphasis of IVS.

Throughout its fifth decade, IVS struggled with funding limitations, but retained a commitment to self-help projects using volunteers from developing countries and appropriate technologies to develop self-reliant communities.[1] IVS volunteers served as consultants helping communities solve their own problems with their own resources. The thematic focus was on sustainable agriculture, assistance to exploited minorities, income generation for women, and AIDS prevention. However, most funding was from sub-contracts with USAID-funded projects to provide local field staff as IVS volunteers for their projects (Bolivia, Bangladesh). Other activities were implemented with private funds but were small scale and provided little funding for home office operations (Ecuador, Southeast Asia, Bangladesh). IVS committed to establishing local organizations to continue IVS-type services as sustainability strategy, but these did not survive the closure of IVS (Caribbean, Ecuador, Bolivia, Bangladesh). IVS lost its unique volunteer-based program model but continued its commitment to community level service delivery and participatory development.

The following sections describe IVS program activities and experience by decade.

2nd Decade Program (1963–1972)

Vietnam and Laos were main focuses of the IVS program during this period, and although all programs in southeast Asia were closed by the mid-1970s, approximately 800 volunteers had served there in the proceeding 20 years. Groups here worked in both rural and urban settings and by the late 1960s had become entangled in the turmoil of the Vietnam war.[8] Eleven volunteers were killed or died in accidents during this period and three were captured and imprisoned by the North Vietnamese.[9]

The first volunteer to lose his life was Peter M. Hunting, a 1963 Wesleyan University graduate, who was killed in an ambush in the Mekong Delta in 1965.[10] He is the subject of a memoir and magazine article by his sister, the author and radio essayist Jill Hunting.[11] Jill Hunting writes in her memoir that volunteers in the Vietnam war zone were aware of the risks they took, with one volunteer reporting "thirty different attempts on his life that he never mentioned to anyone while he was in Vietnam."[12]

In addition, there were programs in Syria, Gaza, Algeria, Sabah, Sudan, Morocco, Zaire, Libya, and Yemen.[8]

3rd Decade Program (1973–1982)

By 1975, all volunteers had been pulled out of mainland southeast Asia. This ended the "Indochina" period of IVS. This change was followed by expansion in other regions around the world. In Bangladesh, volunteer teams worked with agriculture, silviculture, and horticulture, as well as health and family planning. Disaster relief became important later in the program. A clean water project was undertaken in Madagascar, and IVS moved into Latin America. Locations included Ecuador, Bolivia, Indonesia, Colombia, Mauritania, Papua New Guinea, Botswana, and Honduras.[8]

4th Decade Program (1983–1992)

This period of IVS saw a transition from an earlier model where young people from North America were sent all over the world, to one where a smaller number of professionals were placed in locations. In some regions, skilled and educated locals, whose skills were not being utilized due to underemployment, were recruited to volunteer in the program. By the 1990s over 80% of IVS staff and volunteers were host country nationals or internationals. In addition, IVS began working with other aid organizations in regions, supplying volunteers to these existing programs.[8]

Programs that began during this time period include Zimbabwe, the Caribbean, Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Mali, and an HIV/AIDS education program among sex workers in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia.[8]

5th Decade Program (1993–2002)

Financial concerns became severe during this period, ultimately forcing the organization to close. Several changes were made to avoid this, such as restructuring to work in partnership with other PVO organizations, placing self-funded volunteers in other national NGO organizations, and nearly abandoning the original vision of grassroots volunteerism to fund and support foreign organizations.[8]

When the eventuality of closing IVS became unavoidable, the organization committed itself to establishing its remaining operating programs in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Bangladesh as national NGOs. This goal was achieved with the creation of Fundacion Mingo/IVS and IVS Bangladesh. The Caribbean program had already converted to this model in 1984, to form Caribbean Advisory and Professional Services.[8]

Finances

Although IVS was private, it accepted financing for some of its projects from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and its predecessors, the United States Technical Cooperation Administration and the United States International Cooperation Administration. While steps were taken to broaden the financial base, this dependency became a critical problem later in the organization's history. The organization never developed a strong fiscal support system.[8]

During the fifth decade, financial difficulties increased. The Cooperative Agreement with USAID ended, significantly reducing the amount of money coming in through grants. Later, when USAID policy changed to fund programs based in foreign countries, rather than Washington, D.C., even less financial support was coming to IVS.[8]

Menschen

Anthony Lake, who became executive director of UNICEF in 2010, served briefly as head of IVS in the 1970s. Wendy Chamberlin was an IVS instructor at the College of Education in Laos during the early 1970s. She went on to become the U. S. Ambassador to Laos and to Pakistan, and is currently the President of the Middle East Institute.

One of the most notable IVS volunteers was Edgar "Pop" Buell, a farmer from Steuben County, Indiana, who volunteered to work in agricultural development projects in Laos in 1960. Buell later became a senior USAID official in Laos and managed humanitarian relief to the Hmong people during the "Secret War" in which the Hmong, with backing from the United States Central Intelligence Agency, fought communist Pathet Lao forces.[13]

In 1967, four senior IVS staff members in Vietnam, including country director Don Luce,[14] resigned to protest American policy in the Vietnam War, which they believed undermined the humanitarian work that IVS was trying to carry out.[2] The four also drafted a letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson calling the war "an overwhelming atrocity."[15] Signed by 49 IVS volunteers and staff members, the letter received front-page coverage in the New York Times.[16]

Thomas C. Fox, IVS volunteer (’66-’68, Vietnam) wrote about his experiences as a volunteer in Tuy Hoa, Vietnam on Jan. 2, 2018 the “New York Times “67” newsletter. In a first person article entitled “The Camps,” Fox outlined the neglect and poverty he found in the Ninh Tinh and Dong Tac camps for the war displaced farmers. He wrote about the difficulties he faced getting subsistence supplies to these Vietnamese. Fox was one of the signers of the 1967 IVS protest letter and accompanied Don Luce to the US Embassy in Saigon to deliver the letter to then US Ambassador to Vietnam, Ellsworth Bunker.[17]

In 1971, two IVS volunteers in Vietnam, Alexander D. Shimkin and Ronald Moreau, were terminated by the organization when they became sources for a New York Times story by Gloria Emerson about the forced use of Vietnamese civilians by South Vietnamese officers and their American advisers to clear land mines near the village of Ba Chúc.[18][19] Shimkin was killed the following year while covering the war for Newsweek. Moreau later became Newsweek's Bureau Chief for Southeast Asia[20] and South Asia.[21] He died in 2014.[22]

Legacy

IVS was dissolved in 2002.[23] It is considered a precursor to the Peace Corps. The archives of IVS are at the Mennonite Church USA Archives.[8][24] Archival materials of Charles F. Sweet, an IVS volunteer who served in Vietnam during wartime, are available at Cornell University Library in its Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.[25]

Notes and references

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k A legacy of America's global volunteerism : International Voluntary Services (1953-2002). Gary E. Alex, Mike Chilton, Frederic C. Benson (First Peace Corps Writers ed.). Oakland, California. 2022. ISBN 978-1-950444-52-6. OCLC 1346256516.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. ^ a b c Paul A. Rodell, "International Voluntary Services in Vietnam: War and the Birth of Activism, 1958–1967," Peace & Change, v. 27, no. 2, April 2002, pp. 225-244.
  3. ^ Russell D. Brackett, Pathways to Peace, Minneapolis: T.S. Denison & Co., 1965, pp. 317-319.
  4. ^ Registered in the District of Columbia, February 16, 1953, as a domestic nonprofit corporation, File no. 223090 (http://mblr.dc.gov/corp/lookup/status.asp?id=30838).
  5. ^ Paul A. Rodell, “John S. Noffsinger and the Global Impact of the Thomasite Experience,” in Corazon Villareal, ed., Back to the Future: Perspectives on the Thomasite Legacy to Philippine Education, Quezon City, American Studies Association of the Philippines, 2003, pp. 63-79.
  6. ^ Sagnier, Thierry, The Fortunate Few: IVS Volunteers From Asia To The Andes, NCNM Press, 2015.
  7. ^ IVS. Undated. IVS – Problems and Promises in Overseas Service. Washington, DC.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cite error: The named reference IVS was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Stuart Rawlings, ed., The IVS Experience: From Algeria to Viet Nam, International Voluntary Services, 1992, Washington, D.C., dedication page.
  10. ^ Besides Hunting and Shimkin, the other volunteers were: Michael Murphy, Laos, 1966; Max Sinkler (Vietnam?), 1966; Frederick D. Cheydleur, Laos, 1967; Martin J. Clish, Laos, 1967; David L. Gitelson, Vietnam, 1968; Richard M. Sisk, Vietnam, 1968; Chandler Scott Edwards, Laos, 1969; Dennis L. Mummert, Laos, 1969; Arthur D. Stillman, Laos, 1969. Source: Roger Young's Northwest Veterans Newsletter, retrieved August 20, 2010. Also found at [1].
  11. ^ Jill Hunting, Finding Pete: Rediscovering the Brother I Lost in Vietnam, Wesleyan University Press, 2009, 324 pages ISBN 0-8195-6923-2 and Jill Hunting, "A Lost Brother's Lost Words," Washington Post Magazine, March 18, 2007.
  12. ^ Hunting, supra, Finding Pete..., p. 13.
  13. ^ Timothy N. Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: U.S. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955-1975, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. 83-84. ISBN 0-231-07976-1
  14. ^ Luce's formal title was "Chief of Party."
  15. ^ The full text of the letter appears in Don Luce and John Sommer, Viet Nam: The Unheard Voices, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1970, pp. 315-321. ISBN 0-8014-9103-7
  16. ^ Bernard Weinraub, "Volunteer Aides in Saigon Dispute: American Welfare Workers Say U.S. Officials Press Them to Support War; Volunteer Groups and U.S. Aides Clash in Saigon," New York Times, September 15, 1967, p. 1.
  17. ^ "The New York Times". The New York Times.
  18. ^ Gloria Emerson, "Villagers Say Saigon Perils Their Lives," New York Times, January 10, 1971, p. 1. col. 6.
  19. ^ Memorial website in honor of Gloria Emerson: A Letter from Ronald Moreau in Islamabad (Newsweek Magazine) Tuesday, September 28, 2004.
  20. ^ Schwartz (5 April 1991). "FIVE WESTERN JOURNALISTS NOW MISSING IN IRAQ". Washington Post. Washington Post. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  21. ^ Moreau, Ron (Sep–Oct 2007). "Reviewed Work: Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy by Ayesha Siddiqa". Foreign Policy (162): 78–80. JSTOR 25462214. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  22. ^ Ahmed, Fasih (May 16, 2014). "Ron Moreau (1945-2014)". Newsweek Pakistan. Retrieved July 20, 2015.
  23. ^ Hunting, supra, Finding Pete..., p. 31.
  24. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2018-11-26. Retrieved 2022-07-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  25. ^ Guide to the Charles F. Sweet Papers, 1953-1990. http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM04827.html.

Further reading

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