Fritidsforum - a brief History
Fritidsforums Guidelines for activity centre
The members of Fritidsforum are a motley crew with varying aims, activities and leaders. You can find neighbourhood centres with many employees alongside new community associations, which are run wholly on a voluntary basis. However, most of the members are municipal youth centres which concentrate their efforts on youth activities. The purpose of these guidelines is to clarify Fritidsforum’s view of good activities at the centres, and thereby state the demands that ought to be made on the association members. Hopefully, these guidelines will give valuable support when developing and improving the activities.
1. BASIC VIEW
Fritidsforum, with its associated neighbourhood, youth, and community centres etc, is an important part of society’s social, cultural, and democratic infrastructure. Historically and ideologically the association has its roots in the neighbourhood centre movement of “aid to self-help”-tradition. That means local self-organization, the liberation of people’s resources and a strong belief in meetings between people.
2. GOALS
The basic view and overall goals that Fritidsforum stand for is directed towards an all encompassing view on people and the local community. It is important to note the fact that a centre activity can be well-defined when it comes to target group and type of activity, without coming into conflict with the basic view and the overall goals. One demand/condition is however that the definition is made consciously with knowledge of the local community and life situation of the people involved. The overall goals of the association are to increase the possibilites of the weaker groups of people in society to voice their interests, and to strengthen bonds of friendship between people in general.
2:1 Fritidsforum’s goal is
- to achieve a spirit of fellowship and solidarity between people with differing views, age and background.
- to strive for peace and international co-operation.
- to strive for the development of self-confidence and self-esteem of the individual. Special consideration is to be taken concerning the needs of children and youths.
- to especially support socially (or in other ways) neglected groups to fulfill their possibilities in life.
- to stimulate active and creative engagement in a constructive public debate, and thereby work for increased and deepened democracy.
- to influence and create a sense of responsibility for the activities through democratic forms of organisation.
2:2 Access to good meeting-places
Every municipality and housing area ought to have access to open and carefully designed meeting-places. The state and municipalities should be responsible for the basic economical and material requirements. The location and design of the centre should make it available and attractive to everybody, as well as be able to facilitate different activities. The premises ought to be well equipped, fresh and welcoming, as well as a stimulus for people to do cooperative work concerning common affairs.
2:3 A good centre has clearly defined goals
One demand of a good centre activity is that it’s goals are clearly defined. The goals express the desires of the people concerned, and therefore can’t be formulated along any particular, centrally designed guidelines. The centre activity ought also to be beneficial in the development of ones personality, the formation of opinions, and social change, even if locally based people decide what goals to strive for. However, the goals cannot be in conflict with the basic view and overall goals of Fritidsforum. The goals should also be decided upon democratically and open to evaluation; which means that they should be unambiguous, defined in time, and measurable. Elected representatives, leaders, visitors, and residents in the area, should be well aquainted with the centre’s goals and activities. The goals ought to be open to continual discussion, and to be followed up in, for example, annual reports and evaluations, preferably with the advantage of professional evaluators.
3. DEMOCRACY
Democracy is a form for influence and decision-making. Democracy also involves a view on society, a view on humanity, and a process which constantly has to be deepened and renewed. Important democratic principles are that every human being is equal and that decisions are made at the lowest possible level. Fritidsforum is an organisation similar to a popular movement. All members share the same rights, influence and responsibility. At the meeting of representatives every representative holds the same right to vote. For the association in its entirety to function democratically, the local members also have to be organised democratically.
3:1 Committed elected representatives
A good centre is run by representatives who are elected locally. The representatives are responsible for the overall goals and priorities of the centre. They should be able to involve the parties concerned in a continual dialogue concerning goals, methods, and activities. Employees should have regulated participation in decision-making.
3:2 Democratic organisation
The centre’s elected representatives and staff should ensure that all participators have a good possibility for influence and responsibility over the centre’s activities. All the people in the area are considered to be participators. They should, in a democratic manner, be represented on the board of the centre, or in a similar decision-making body. The management should give priority to work with groups who find it difficult to voice their opinions, and who are unused to asserting their interests. That is often the case with young people with a weak foothold in society.
4. METHODS
To reach the goals set up for the activities awareness and a knowledge of different methods is required. Fritidsforum’s member centres have three main functions: The first is to be an open meeting-place for people with different cultural backgrounds, and different ways of life. Pedagogically this purpose corresponds especially to the “open activity”. The second is to be supportive of people’s self-organisation. This purpose usually calls for a pedagogy called “community work”. The third main function is “public education”. The aim of this task is to increase people’s ability for critical thinking and independent action.
4:1 Open activity
The open activity should facilitate informal and everyday meetings between people with different cultural backgrounds, and different ways of life. Different minority groups should have a respected space. The pedagogy of the “open activity” should be formulated with respect to the groups who are unaccustomed to organising themselves. Children and young people in particular should be given help by the staff of the centre to formulate their goals and to accomplish their possibilities in life.
4:2 Community work
The centre should be so firmly established in the area as to be open for the needs and initiatives found among the people living in the vicinity. To accomplish this function some kind of visiting activity, and social mobilisation, is often called for to strengthen people’s resources. The staff of the centre should also develop the cooperation with different associations and public participants in the area.
4:3 Public education
The staff of the centre also function as public educators. Their task is to promote the personal development, the quality of life, and the readiness to action, of the single individual. The environment of the centre should stimulate people to a critical social debate, and to make them actively contribute to the kind of changes they all agree upon.
5. CONTRIBUTORS
The employees and the voluntary workers should be the bearers of Fritidsforum’s ideas and have a special responsibility to realise and develop the goals of Fritidsforum. Since a prerequisite for centre activities is qualified contributors, it is important to give the contributors priority to education and training.
5:1 The role of the contributor
The contributors at Fritidsforum’s member centres should have education which corresponds to the three main functions: “open activity”, “community work” and “public education”. By taking part in what Fritidsforum has to offer when it comes to education and training, as well as other activities, contributors are able to increase their insight and competence indifferent current issues and ways of working.