After 40 Years …

Lessons learned in community organizing: A basis to understand power and political relations.

What does it mean today having been a community organizer with ASF? Learning about organizing tools was very helpful: “Don´t leave a meeting without a deadline”, for example. However, much more important was to learn about how different people think, how societies function and what different cultures mean. A service with ASF was and hopefully is the best tool for young people to go abroad, to get new insights, a better understanding of social structures and political relations, and last but not least a new interpretation of his or her native land. Thank you ASF/ARSP!

Franz Kohout, Community Organizer 1978/9 Rhode Island Workers Association, Providence, RI, later co-founder of the Green Party in Bavaria and today professor of political science at the University of the German Armed Forces, Munich (Bundeswehrhochschule).