Catholic youth group Austria
The Katholische Jungschar is the official children's organization of the Catholic Church in Austria and one of the lay movements in Catholic Action .
According to its own information, it is the largest children's organization in the country, where more than 100,000 children are cared for by more than 12,000 group leaders in local youth groups. Internationally it is organized in the Fimcap .
history
Predecessor organizations
In the interwar period, there were already numerous Catholic youth leagues that continuously accompanied children's groups: Reichsbund, Bund Neuland , St. George's Scouts , Catholic Young People. The Jungschar as an organization did not yet exist at that time, but in the mid-1930s the term “Jungschar”, which was introduced in Protestant child labor in Germany after the First World War, was used for some of these groups of children for the first time.
With the beginning of National Socialist rule in 1938, the Catholic youth organizations were broken up and banned. The pastoral lessons for children in the sacristies became - also as a substitute for the severely restricted religious instruction - the pastoral hub for children during the war.
Foundation and early years
1945 - as the historical records call it - “the parishioners step out of the catacombs” . A new youth movement began to grow, without the fragmentation into a multitude of competing associations as in the interwar period. The first youth groups were founded in Vienna as early as 1945, and shortly afterwards in Salzburg, Linz and the other dioceses .
In 1947 the Austrian Catholic Youth Group was founded as part of the Austrian Catholic Youth Organization. The newly founded organization only consisted of a single body, the federal leadership group. The diocesan offices were connected to the respective diocese and thus only representative offices. Another peculiarity was that the Catholic Young Group of Austria (KJSÖ) hardly had a common basis - the girls 'boys and boys' boys existed parallel to one another, the only common institution being the federal leadership group.
Hermann Stöger became the central leader of the boys' group; Wilhelmine “Willy” Lussnigg (1909–1986), sister of Maria Müller-Lussnigg (1914–2012), elected the central leader of the young girls' group. In 1953 she was followed by Eva Petrik . She named as the basic target perspective of youth work: "The children should learn to live a Christian life in everyday life and should be enabled to act independently in Christianity" . Out of this practice, the first statutes valid throughout Austria were formulated in 1949 with the assistance of Father Glaser, child minister in Vienna. For the first time, expressions such as “community of life, education and action” were anchored in these for the further development and self-image of the young crowd.
Other basic principles were:
- always start from the child,
- work holistically,
- to take into account new scientific knowledge about the nature of children and their worldview in everyday work and
- find their way to faith with the children.
The group was always described as a path and a goal at the same time. The children should learn through and in the group to live together and to act in solidarity. Right from the start, the youth groups were mainly led by teenagers or young adults who did this work on a voluntary basis. In 1955 there were already more than 3,000 "Jungscharführer" active. They accompanied 30,000 girls and 50,000 boys in their groups. Almost 13% of Austrian children were with the youth group in 1955. In the middle of the 1950s, under the title “Principles of the Young Group Method”, the methodological guiding principles of young group work were summarized under the following terms:
- Home,
- Experience,
- Lustfulness,
- Self-employment and
- Self-activity
The accompanying texts contained descriptions of these key terms, which, like the basic principles of the 1940s, have lost none of their topicality to this day:
- "Girls and boys should have a room in the parish where they feel comfortable, where they are undisturbed and at home."
- "An experience that we can convey to the children saves a lot of useless words."
- "We learn by playing."
- “The young crowd is not child care or child protection, but a children's movement! The children should voluntarily participate and help shape it. "
Consolidation and establishment
After years of consolidation in the internal area and the first phase of spreading, the young crowd began to turn not only to children in Austria, but to disadvantaged people all over the world: the Epiphany was first carried out in 1955. The historical awareness of movements is mostly also shaped by "stories" that are passed on from generation to generation of the committed employees and that also reveal something between the lines about the motivation and culture of the movement. The founding story of the Dreikönigsaktion has become such a narrative story for the young crowd:
In 1954 the Jungschar carried out the international light relay "Jungschar brings the light from Lourdes" through. The Mission Transport Association (MIVA) provides a jeep as an escort vehicle. After completing the light relay, the jeep was used in North Africa and the youngsters asked MIVA how they could show their appreciation for the support. Karl Kumpfmüller, the managing director of MIVA, then says: "You could bring the old folk custom of caroling to life and use the donations to buy a motorcycle for a missionary in Africa." The central leadership group of the young boys decided to carry out such an Epiphany under the motto "A motorcycle for the mission" .
The success of the campaign was unexpectedly great: 449 parishes from all over Austria took part and with the 42,386 ATS that were won, two other vehicles could be financed in addition to the motorcycle. This unique activity then became permanent and the young boys also described their expectations of what the girls should contribute: Help with the acquisition of the robes, accompany the boys singing stars and eagerly sing along.
In the 1960s, it also became a special concern of the young crowd to invite children to major Austrian-wide events lasting several days: for boys there was the “ Boys' Olympics ”, for girls the “ Palette ”. The Dreikönigsaktion achieved an eight-digit result for the first time in 1965: ATS 10.9 million were collected.
Development of a gender-specific self-image
The 1960s brought a lot in motion through the rapid social and church developments and the education plan for the young girls created in 1968 portrayed a self-confident and open-minded female identity . Topics in the group lessons were:
- "Are women in the church 2nd grade?"
- "I have a friend" and
- "Why the pill"
In some parishes, co-educational groups were founded for the first time , which led to the organizational separation of boys and girls being questioned. With the statute passed in 1970, the separation was officially abolished, in the parishes the separate leadership groups of boys and girls were merged into one parish leadership group.
After the organizational reorientation in 1973, a new curriculum vitae for the young crowd was jointly determined in 1976. The focus for the 8 to 10-year-olds was formulated as follows: listening to one another, being happy with one another, helping one another, trusting in God .
At the beginning of the 1970s, the Jungschar already numbered over 90,000 Jungschar children. The youth group work of the 1970s was also characterized by new accents in socio-political work, which culminated in the large-scale study “Children, Christians, Citizens” in 1979. In eight working groups, uncomfortable issues such as all-day school types, children and suicide, children in homes, the situation of children with multiple disabilities or children in traffic were taken up. The political dimension of the youth group work was given a new emphasis through the education and upbringing goals in 1975 when being together with the children: The socio-political area became a separate core area of the goals of the youth group work and new methodical forms such as group parliaments and group hours on current political issues became developed in parish youth work.
Legal independence and the "four pillars"
The 1980s of the youth group were characterized by an in-depth pedagogical, theological and pastoral debate across the boundaries of individual parishes and dioceses. In a renewed approach to play education , the importance of cooperative play was emphasized and the common social performance terms were questioned. Play libraries , play buses and museum tours for children enriched the image of the youth work. In the parish youth work, new experiences were gained with forms of open and project-oriented child labor. New ways to study the Bible based on the everyday experiences of children were developed against the background of a broad debate on symbol theory and understanding of symbols. The annual theme “Tatort Korinth” as a result of this development was recognized beyond the borders of Austria.
A structural change brought about a structural change for the youth group in 1985 when the association “Catholic youth group Austria” was founded. Although this is a branch of the Catholic Youth Organization in Austria, it has since been independent of the Youth Organization in personnel and financial issues and has its own legal personality.
The development information and education work in Austria was given special attention in the second half of the 1980s: Signals for this were a signature campaign for the rights of the Indian minorities in Brazil and the participation of many parishes in the thematically oriented week of prayer “Who hears the complaints of those whose life is threatened ” in November 1987. The Dreikönigsaktion 1991 brought a nine-figure result for the first time with 106 million ATS and more than 500 projects could be funded from it. In 1992 the project categories of the Dreikönigsaktion were reformulated: pastoral; Educational; Social, human rights, minority and environmental protection programs.
At the beginning of the 1990s , child participation and children's rights became an important work perspective for the young crowd. As part of the annual theme 1990 "Environment, Justice, Peace", children's conferences on these topics were held in many parishes. On a supraregional level, the youth group published the “Report on the Situation of Children” every year from 1992, diocesan children's forums and street theater actions on child policy content supplemented the youth group's commitment to age-appropriate opportunities for children to participate in church and society.
In 1995 a model was drawn up with which the activities of the young crowd were divided into four “pillars”: living space for children, church for children, lobby for children and help within the framework of the Epiphany.
Guiding principle
Today's motto is:
- In the youth group we start from the vision of a coexistence where children and adults, men and women, poor and rich, disabled and non-disabled people, share life with one another. On the way to such a Christian community, we make our contribution to a happy life for children.