About SCI
Our mission, vision and values
Service Civil International (SCI) is a volunteer organisation dedicated to promoting a culture of peace by organising international voluntary projects for people of all ages and backgrounds. The organisation consists of 41 branches and an ever growing number of partner organisations.
SCI is open to all. It was one of the first organisations to divest itself of all political or religious affiliations in its work of promoting peace and intercultural understanding through practical action. Throughout the years SCI has made a major contribution to the development of the main forms of volunteering. Year after year, the organisation enables thousands of volunteers to participate in community projects.
SCI’s vision is a world of peace; social justice and sustainable development, where all people live together with mutual respect and without recourse to any form of violence to solve conflict. SCI’s mission is to promote a culture of peace by organising international volunteering projects with local and global impact.
Apart from mission and vision SCI is being guided in all its activities by our core values. Every voluntary project, meeting, exchange or training has to be in line with these values:
- Volunteering: in the sense of acting out of self-initiative, without seeking material reward and for the benefit of civil society, as a method and a statement for social change, whilst never competing with paid labour nor seeking to contribute to strike-breaking
- Non-Violence: as a principle and a method
- Human Rights: respect for individuals as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Solidarity: international solidarity for a more just world and solidarity between human beings on all levels
- Respect for the Environment: and the ecosystem of which we are a part and on which we are dependent
- Inclusion: to be open and inclusive to all individuals who share the aims and objectives of the movement, without regard to gender, colour, religion, nationality, social status or political views and any other possible grounds for discrimination
- Empowerment: providing people with means (knowledge, tools) to understand and act in order to transform the social, cultural and economic structures that affect their lives at all levels.
- Cooperation: with local communities as well as other local, national and international actors to strengthen the positive potential within civil society as a whole
The Association of Service Civil International is a non-political, non-religious, international not-for-profit association under the Belgian Law on Not-For-Profit Associations, International Not-For-Profit Associations and Foundations of 27 June 1921, changed by the Law of 2 May 2002 and by its Royal Execution Decrees. It carries the name “The Association of Service Civil International” or in short “Service Civil International”, or “SCI”. It has been recognised by Royal Decree on 21 January 1994.
