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Operation Day's Work

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Day's Work is a solidarity program based on volunteering by high school students. It was first implemented in Sweden to honor the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld.[1]

During Operation Day's Work (also called Solidarity Action Day), students get the chance to exercise a job of their choice instead of going to school for one day. They donate their salaries to youth-related projects from all over the world. Today there are Operation Day's Work organisations in several countries.

Multiple Operation Day's Work organisations have engaged in the SAME network (SAME). Within this network, all the committees have agreed to the terms of the network's basic common principles and quality guidelines. These documents ensure the ecological, economic and social sustainability of the committee and their supported projects as well as the independence of any political party or religion, and include more values and principles of the organisations.

Countries with a national Operation Day's Work committee

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Denmark

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The national committee was formally founded in 1984.[2]

Instructions from the department of Education specifically state that no student can be forced to take part. The pay for their work goes to a chosen project in a development country. Due to a recent agreement with the Danish Ministry of Education the students are no longer considered to be truant during this day.[3]

Year Country supported Year Country supported Year Country supported
1985 Tanzania 1996 Ladakh 2004 Nicaragua, Honduras or Guatemala
1986 Nicaragua 1997 Guatemala 2005 Kirgisistan
1988 Namibia 1998 Palæstina 2006 South Africa
1990 Eritrea 1999 South Sudan 2007 Bolivia
1991 Brazil 2000 Romani people 2008 Niger
1992 Somalia 2001 Mexico 2009 Zimbabwe[4]
1994 Ecuador 2002 Nepal 2010 Burma
1995 Mozambique 2003 Cambodia 2011 Peru
2012 Iraq 2013 Sierra Leone 2014 Kenya
2015 Somaliland 2016 Guatemala 2017 Dhaka
2018 Greenland 2019 Uganda 2020 Peru

Finland

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The national committee in Finland is called Taksvärkki ry/Operation a Day's Work (ODW) Finland. Taksvärkki ry is a non-governmental organization (NGO) whose objective is to improve the living conditions and promote the human rights of children and young people in developing countries and to encourage Finnish young people towards global solidarity. Taksvärkki ry has implemented development cooperation projects since 1967 with funds raised by Finnish schoolchildren and students. ODW Finland also provides free development education material for schools in Finland. The campaign for the school year 2018–2019 is for active youth in Zambia.[5] The patron of the Taksvärkki campaign is President Tarja Halonen.

Germany

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In Germany there a few organizations which organize the Solidarity Action Days.

The biggest and oldest one is called Schüler Helfen Leben[6] (Students Helping Life), founded in 1992 when war in the Balkans started. Even today this organization runs youth projects in Balkan Region. Schüler Helfen Leben is also the only Day's Work organization in Germany where only students and young volunteers organize the Solidarity Action Day, and is therefore also the only one which is part of SAME. Over the years more than 1,000,000 students earned more than 20,000,000 Euros and realized more than 150 youth projects all over the western Balkans. The Patron of the Solidarity Action Day is the German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Another organization is called "Aktion Tagwerk".[7] This organization is part of the Human Help Network and organizes the social day for children in Africa.

Italy

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In Italy, there are two organizations that facilitate a Day's Work.

One of them is based in South Tirol, "Operation Daywork".[8] It was founded with aid from Denmark.[9] Operation Daywork works with both Italian speaking schools and with German speaking schools.

The second organization is also based in the North, in Veneto. It works with Italian schools and the organisation is called Social Day.

Belgium

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The Belgian national committee is called 'YOUCA' (Youth for Change and Action), and was formerly known as "Zuiddag." It was founded in 2006, inspired by the similar Norwegian organization. The Belgian organisation only works with schools in the Flanders Region and Brussels Capital Region.

Norway

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Operation Day's Work (Norwegian: Operasjon Dagsverk) is administered by the School Student Union of Norway and was first held in 1964.[10] The official page provide an oversight of earlier projects:

Year Country supported Year Country supported Year Country supported Year Country supported
1964 Algeria 1967 Peru 1968 Ceylon 1969 Zambia
1970 Zambia 1971 Guinea Bissau and Angola 1972 Portuguese Empire in Africa 1973 Bangladesh
1974 Tanzania 1975 Botswana 1976 Sudan 1977 Brazil
1978 Cambodian refugees in Thailand 1979 Jamaica 1980 Refugees from Eritrea in Sudan 1981 Afghanistan
1982 Zimbabwe 1983 Nicaragua 1984 Bolivia and Ecuador 1985 Namibia
1987 Eritrea 1988 South Africa and Mozambique 1989 Peru 1990 Support for education in freedom
1991 Brazil and Chile 1992 Costa Rica, Ecuador,
Bolivia and Brazil		 1993 Cambodia 1994 South Africa
1995 Brazil 1996 Afghanistan 1997 Brazil 1998 Tanzania, Zanzibar,
Malawi and Uganda
1999 Girls all over the world 2000 South Africa, Zimbabwe,
Bolivia and Nicaragua 		2001 Indonesia, New Guinea and Malaysia 2002 Sierra Leone
2003 Ceylon 2004 South Africa 2005 Brazil 2006 Nepal
2007 Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua 2008 Bangladesh 2009 Malawi, Mombasa
Uganda and South Africa		 2010 Brazil
2011 Rwanda 2012 Nepal 2013 Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico 2014 Etiopia and Malawi
2015 Argentina, Chile and Peru 2016 Colombia 2017 Nigeria 2018 Palestine

Sweden

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Sweden was the first country to establish this event. Since 1962 the national committee has been under control of a student organization called "Sveriges Elevråds Centralorganiastion, SECO."[11] There has been a power struggle inside the SECO organization and the government has demanded oversight over the collection of the money.

The campaign for 2010 supported schools in Sudan.[12]

United States

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The national committee is called "Operation Day's Work". It was founded in 1999.[13] According to their website they have been involved in the projects listed below.

Year Country supported Year Country supported Year Country supported Year Country supported
1998–1999 Haiti 1999–2000 El Salvador 2000 Nepal 2002 Ethiopia
2003 Bangladesh 2004 Sierra Leone 2005 Vietnam

Another organization called Schools for Schools is based on the same concept.


References

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  1. ^ Om Operation Dagsverke Archived 10 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine, (About), Operation Dagsvaerke Sweden
  2. ^ Projects Archived 21 November 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Operation Day's work, Denmark
  3. ^ Retningslinier for statstilskud til Operation Dagsværk (Instructions for aid to Operation Dagsvaerk), the Department of Education in Denmark, September 2004
  4. ^ Country chosen to make the leading African president attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 COP15
  5. ^ Direct action from youth to youth, Taksvärkki ry – Operation a Day's Work, Finland
  6. ^ [1], Germany
  7. ^ Aktion Tagwerk, Germany
  8. ^ Operation Daywork, Italy
  9. ^ Operation Dagsvaerk Internationalt Archived 17 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Operation Dagsvaerk Denmark
  10. ^ tidligere prosjekter Archived 23 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine (Former projects), Operasjon Dagsverk Norway
  11. ^ Frågor och Svar Archived 10 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine (FAQ), Operation Dagsvaerke Sweden
  12. ^ Årets kampanj Archived 9 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Operation Dagsvaerke Sweden
  13. ^ Our Constitution Archived 16 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Operation Day's Work, USA
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