For a long time I have wondered whether there is a connection between the economic situation in a specific country and the performance of the respective NA. The dramatic collapse of Argentina's currency about 8 years ago hit CISV Argentina so hard, they were hardly able to send anybody to international CISV programmes. The recent rise of China's economy is also nicely refelcted in its CISV participation.
Now these days the entire world is hit by a global financial crisis, that has lead to an economic recession. How will this affect CISV? Here are a number of assumptions:
- Company's may be reluctant to sponsor any CISV events
- With companies laying of workers and people losing their houses, less families will be willing to sponsor their kids CISV activities
- the general psychology "being in a crisis" will make people less willing to pay for their children's expensive summer holydays.
- Worrying about their financial future may leave less time to volunteer for a good cause.
On the other hand, certain effects could lead to more CISV participation, such as graduates, unable to find a job straight away, could be more willing to donate a summer to CISV. But all in all, I think that CISV is more likely to be positively correlated to the economic situation - therefore I predict, that CISV numbers will be going down. Since CISV international's finances heavily depend on the number of programmes hosted, important innovative projects may have to be cancelled, maybe even IO will have to reduce its costs. I don't want sound like a pessimist, but I think it would be better to be prepared before things start spiraling down.
Last week I heard a rumour, that even though the application deadline has passed, less than 100 people have signed up for AIM in Guatemala. If this is true, it may be the first reflection of the financial crisis in CISV.
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