Team introduction 1960 -1971 -

Team Kythera, their activities over the years 1960 thru 1971

Introduction

In the past years I have collected and studied the work reports that were regularly written by the Team members about what they had been doing in the past period. These reports were sent to all those who were interested in the Team’s community development activities on the island or to those people who might provide funds for a certain project.

From May 1960 thru June 1962 however only George Koksma wrote daily ‘letters’ about the Team’s doings. This sort of diary was sent biweekly to the main WCC office in Geneva. In this diary style George did not always express himself very diplomatic. To a certain extent this also might be caused by their coming into a culture they clearly were not accustomed to.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to retrieve work reports from the period mid-June 1962 up to July 1964. This also applies for a large part of the project numbering and the technical drawings that were made. George told me in the mid seventies that he had noticed that nobody was interested in this information and therefore he had thrown away a lot.

From July 1964 thru September 1971 monthly reports were written wherein every Team member wrote about his/her own activities.

For both the available bi-weekly and monthly reports I have chronologically drawn up the high-lights. “1960- 1962 Bi-weekly reports, main topics” and “1964- 1971 Monthly reports, main topics” It is an interesting read and starts in 1960, click here to continue the reports…

With aid of these work reports I wrote the following articles published in the Kythera Summer Edition in:

KSE 2010 ‘Water and trees’ in 1960, still an issue in 2010’
KSE 2011 ‘Paleopolis summer camp 1965’
KSE 2014 ‘Cheese factory Fratsia’
KSE 2014 ‘Mylopotamos school’
KSE 2015 ‘Improvement island communication with the mainland’, an article about the construction of the Kythera harbours
KSE 2017 ‘Reforestation of Kythera in the sixties’
Old people’s home Potamos (Oct 1961 – 1971, written August 2013)

**An overview of the Teams activities from 1960 until 1971 with the work of he Dutch Team from the World Council of Churches (Wereldraad van Kerken) at the Greek island of Kythera (1) and an financial overview (2).

From George his previous short visit to Kythera in July 1959 he knew that the water economy situation and the lack of trees had to be spear points in the Team’s work in the coming years.

The World Council of Churches of course did not provide any budget for whatever project Anna and George would like to start. Funding for (technical) projects was something they had to learn to be resourceful for. They had to approach in writing foreign churches and institutes that could start fundraising for a certain project. Also, they could make use of their own Dutch network. However, in due time they knew about several international institutes/foundations that provided money for certain types of projects or even supplied necessary equipment. To name several:

Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World -BfdW- is an aid organization of the Protestant regional churches and free churches in Germany. The foundation provides help for self-help for the work of church, church-related and secular partner organizations)
Heifer project (Heifer Internationalis a development organization working to end hunger and poverty around the world by providing livestock and training)
Self-Help project (Self-Help Project as a Tool for a Community Development)

Reading through the rather detailed ‘daily letters’ George sent bi-weekly to Geneva you will notice what a multitude of subjects, problems, people’s attitude, etc, they were confronted with these first years 1960 – 1962. Click here for the main topics 1960 and where I left out some of the barbs George planted in his writing!

The Equipment

The Bulldozer, The Air Compressor and The Jeep. Some short stories by Jean Bingen