The International Society for Mobile Youth Work

1. History

The International Society for Mobile Youth Work (ISMO) was founded in 1992. The history of ISMO, however, goes back far into the eighties (1983, 1984). It was at that time when Dr. Specht from the Institute of Social Pedagogic at the University of Tuebingen/Germany had very good contacts to university professors in the United States like Irving Spergel, University of Chicago, Walter B. Miller, Harvard Law School Boston and Malcolm W. Klein, University of Southern California, Los Angeles concerning the matter of Street Work as a professional approach towards the problems of street children and street gangs. With the support of Prof. Dr. Hans Thiersch, University of Tuebingen, they invited international professors of universities for applied science and practical experts like social worker or street worker from around the world, among others also from African countries, regularly for an exchange of experience on an international level in co-operation with the Social Service Agency of the Protestant Church of Germany (Diakonisches Werk der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland).
It was the aim of the foundation of ISMO to continue the discussion, the analysis and the development of the approach of Mobile Youth Work (street work, outreach youth work, gang work, detached youth work) mainly community-based on a world wide level in order to improve the living situation of street children effectively.
Being a professional association within Diakonisches Werk, ISMO pursues the additional aim - apart from the expert exchange on various levels (local and international NGOs, Ministries, Universities) - to support the nation wide networking of experts and NGOs in order to achieve synergy effects and to strengthen public awareness for the rights and needs of street children. ISMO decisively participated in the foundation of a European network for street children.
ISMO also pursues the aim to support the implementation of the contents of the UN-children's rights convention.

2. The Concept of Mobile Youth Work

The concept of Mobile Youth Work, which ISMO represents, has been developed in Germany, especially at the University of Tübingen, since the beginning of the seventies by an international exchange over many years. The starting point of the approach is the living area of children and youths who have dropped out of existing society structures and it seeks for long term solutions for individual and collective problems together with the persons affected. The activity concept of Mobile Youth Work as an innovative, outreaching field of youth social work connects the approach of street work, which comes form the USA, with elements of community work and open youth work, which is practised world wide in a proportionally varying mixture. Especially the countries of the South, not possessing a welfare system comparable to that of Western European countries, have been working with grass root, environment oriented, open and participatory offers of children- and youth work for many years. The concept of Mobile Youth Work receives important impulses from this practice of the South.
Mobile Youth Work, for instance, turns against the world wide tendency to individualising aids within social work. Mobile Youth Work emphasises the systematically oriented thinking and acting (for instance system of family) and refers to the predominantly positive significance of groups outside the family (system of peers, groups, gangs), these frequently having a positive educational value. The support of/by the family on the one hand and community based work (network, empowerment, mediation) on the other hand are important supporting pillars for Mobile Youth Work.

3. ISMO Symposia

The first four symposia ISMO organised were held in Germany: Tuebingen 1983, 1984, Esslingen 1988, Stuttgart 1991. Scientists and practical workers from all over the world were invited to discuss issues of Mobile Youth Work on the background of international experience and to exchange results of their work with street children over many years. Already in 1991 a representative from Botswana spoke about a rehabilitation program for drug addicted street children on the Stuttgart Symposium. An expert from Nairobi documented the success of a program of Mobile Youth Work for sexually abused street girls which the UNDUGU Society led through at the time.
With its 6th International Symposium 1994 in Santiago de Chile on Mobile Youth Work, which was the first to take place outside of Germany, ISMO focused mainly the situation toward the situation of street children from Latin American countries. On the occasion of this symposium the governments of the Latin American countries were required to implement and practice the UN Convention on the Rights of Children into their legislation.
ISMO organised 1995 a more Western- European oriented Symposium in Solothurn/Switzerland and the last one 1998 in St. Petersburg with over 350 participants from 38 countries around the world dealing to a large extend with the situation of street children and street youth in the Russian Federation. This was done in co-operation with the European Network on Street Children Worldwide, Brussels (ENSCW), the Administration and the State University of the city of St. Petersburg and the Russian-Orthodox Church.
This conference lead to the foundation of a Russian Network for Street Children and to a strong public and political awareness of the problems with which children have to deal when living on the street. Governmental as well as Church institutions became aware of new, non-restrictive approaches of social work with children. Consequently, regular co-operation between Central- and Western-European NGOs were established. The interest of Russian partner organisations in training concerning Mobile Youth Work still has a high priority.

4. The 8th Symposium: Mobile Youth Work and Street Children in Limuru/Kenya October 2003

4.1 Initial Situation

In many African countries an increasing number of children and youths (up to 18 years) is forced to lead their life on the street. This development has sharpened during the past 20 years, especially in the big cities of Africa. But the phenomenon of children living on the street increases in smaller cities in rural districts as well. Although, according to statistics, more than half of the population in many African countries is less than 17 years old, an big part of this age group has only poor access to vital resources like training, health care, a secure home… The main part of this age group is excluded from decisions concerning their own future. The growing number of children living on the street demonstrates this exclusion from society clearly.
The WHO concluded as early as 1993, that there were 10 Million of street children just in Africa. The Children's Department of the Government of Kenya gave a number of 300.000 children living on the street in Kenya in 1995. In the view of public opinion the main part of these children were realised as being working children, but also (Aids-)orphans, refugee children, former children soldiers.
As a response to the various problems of these children, national and international NGOs make vital efforts to integrate them into the society or into a newly to be created social structure by way of a great many projects and programs which have developed during the last years, especially since the beginning of the nineties. The professional working approaches and methods applied are as varied as the projects themselves.
Childlife Trust (Directory of Worthy Programs for Street Children in Nairobi) united 90 organisations in just in Nairobi in 1996. Up-to-date estimations are even much higher.

4.2 Aims of the Symposium

ISMO has the following aims concerning the symposium of Nairobi/Limuru:

Support of a dialogue free from competition between very different practical working approaches including approaches of community work, street work, counselling (health counselling for youths as well as counselling of governments), but also formal and informal education and training programs. Models of prevention, intervention and rehabilitation are to be presented and discussed.

An inquiry into and documentation of existing expert's reports and standards of Mobile Youth Work with street children is still necessary.
In many African countries, up-to-date studies which have investigated plain data about the situation of street children are existing, for instance from UNICEF, Makarere University Kampala, Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi etc. Frequently they have not been printed and are not easily available on an nation wide level.
A further aim in this context is the common definition and development of commonly valid standards and qualification criteria for the social work with children and youths (up to 18 years of age).


4.3 Results

ISMO and NCCK in Kenya organised with 198 participants from 35 countries around the world, but manly from African countries, the 8th International Symposium on Mobile Youth Work in Limuru/Kenya from October 27th to October 30th 2003.
See the booklet ISMO „Mobile Youth Work in Africa„, Stuttgart, October 2004.

5. ISMO in Eastern Europe again

Since July 2004 ISMO runs special training programmes on Mobile Youth Work in 7 eastern European countries, supported by the impulse program of the Deutsche Behindertenhilfe – Aktion Mensch e.V. .
As a result of the St. Petersburg conference in 1998 (7th ISMO symposium) and of the action programme of the organisers of that symposium ISMO has been active in this respect since 1999 in the Russian Federation. Many seminars have been held since then in the following Russian cities: St. Petersburg, Smolensk, Moscow, Tscheljabinsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk and Irkutsk. 2004 ISMO started also in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Bulgaria, and Georgia new courses in Mobile Youth Work.
A course carried out within 12 months consists out of 3 seminars and a seminar lasts 3 day. Experts from ISMO travel in the respective eastern European cities and carry out, together with national experts, the seminar. The number of the participants varies from 20 to 30 participants. At the end there is a colloquium and the participants receive a certificate about the basics of the concept of Mobile Youth Work. Trained as multipliers in Mobile Youth Work they should be able to do a more qualified youth social work or should try to change and influence the local, regional and national social youth policy. The University of Tübingen, Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, will start in 2007 with an evaluation study about the 9 running projects.