Federation of Protestant Swiss Youths
The Bund Evangelischer Schweizer Jungscharen (BESJ) is a Swiss, Christian youth association. He works primarily in German-speaking Switzerland , and the offers are aimed at children and young people between the ages of 6 and 16. The BESJ includes around 300 local youth groups, which are led by volunteer leaders. These groups mostly belong to a local Christian community (regional church or free church ), which support the BESJ with membership fees. The association itself currently has 10 permanent employees, the so-called BESJ secretaries. They hold training courses for the leaders of the local groups, organize camps or conferences throughout Switzerland and advise communities that want to set up a new group. The office is located in Fällanden .
Mission statement
The aim of the BESJ is to support the Ameisli, youth group and teenage work in Christian communities so that young people are addressed holistically according to spirit, soul and body and encouraged in their development to become independent people and integrated members of society.
The BESJ mission:
"This is what we live for: All children and young people in Switzerland have the opportunity to hear the Gospel in such a way that they can choose Jesus and are encouraged in their discipleship."
working area
The BESJ work is divided into 4 areas:
- Ants
Ameisli is an offer for children between 6 and 9 years of age. The afternoon program usually takes place every two weeks on Saturday or on another half-day during the week and lasts two to three hours. Program content consists primarily of games, handicrafts, drawing, listening to stories, discovering nature, moving indoors and outdoors and singing songs.
- Jungschi
Jungschi is aimed at children between 9 and 13 years of age. At this age, the children want to experience as much as possible and that is why the program is based on this. In the afternoons you are out in nature a lot, doing sports, doing terrain games, learning technology (map studies, compass, knots, first aid), climbing, etc. In many groups, large camps take place over Whitsun and during the summer holidays.
- Teen
The teen work is aimed at young people between the ages of 13 and 16. In these groups, social and spiritual components are promoted, e.g. B. make friends, lead discussions about “God and the world”, have shared experiences, take on minor management tasks and put projects into practice.
- Floorball
Sports work has also been promoted in the BESJ since 2000. In 2016, the area, in which one has mainly decided on the sport of floorball, was also renamed “floorball area”. Recently, more and more floorball groups have emerged in addition to a group of young people or teenagers. There is also a BESJ league and a nationwide tournament, the BESJ Masters.
Experimental work areas
- Computer science
Youth Computer Clubs have existed since 2007, which are affiliated to the BESJ and also pursue the BESJ mission. The clubs try to address the group of young people who cannot be reached with Ameisli, Jungschar, Teenie and sports work. The individual clubs / local groups are united in a network.
organization
The BESJ works in regions. A region is a loose association of several young groups (usually 5–10 local groups / young groups). Several regions are grouped into fields. There is usually a regional manager per region and, optionally, a regional team that supports the regional manager in his task.
Information, projects and goals of the BESJ are passed on from the BESJ secretaries (employees of the BESJ) to the regional directors and from the regional directors to the main responsible persons of the young groups.
financing
The BESJ is financed through membership fees from affiliated community associations, course fees and donations.
history
The first youth groups were formed in 1953, at that time not yet organized in an association. The BESJ was founded in 1974 and has been organized as an association since 1982 with Peter Blaser as federal secretary, which he has remained to this day. In 1986 the first national floorball tournament was held. 14 years after it was founded, 200 groups of youngsters have already joined the association. In 1993 the Ameisli, Jungschi & Teenie areas are introduced. Since then, more and more young groups and supporting associations have joined them. The association also hired more and more people to cope with the tasks. In 2000 an extra job was created for sports work. At the end of 2002 the 300th local congregation joined the BESJ and since 2004 there has been a new training concept called 'Know-How', in which the leaders can train themselves via a tiered system (entry-management-collaborate-lead-train). In 2007, the BESJ started the “Unreachable” project to reach 20 percent more children and young people, which was completed in spring 2010.