It was great seeing many of you in Villigst a few weeks ago. You can read more about the Annual Meeting below. I think many of us had a feeling that things now are moving forward in a positive direction, and this was a very inspiring experience. At the Sigtuna Foundation, we will do our best to support a constructive development of the association.

These newsletters represent one small step in developing the infrastructure of the association. However, we need to continue to update our lists of addresses. If you know someone within or outside your organization that could benefit from getting short updates from the association in the form of these newsletters, please tell us. You can do so by writing to office@oikosnet.eu.

Warm greetings

Alf Linderman, Executive Director of Sigtuna Foundation

A glimpse from the Business meeting. Marielisa von Thadden, Jaap van der Sar and Hermann Düringer.

Report by Jaap van der Sar

Europe: where does it begin,where does it end?” This was the main theme of the Annual conference 2014, which took place in Villigst, Germany. We approached this in several ways.

First: Compassion doesn’t end in geography. We heard about a colleague in Aleppo, Syria, who wasn’t able to attend a meeting of Oikosnet International, our umbrella-organisation. We heard about illness of members, about a car-accident which made it impossible for our treasurer to participate, about a beloved who passed away. And we know about developments in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in …. In this sense Europe doesn’t end. Read more

Report by Elisabeth Reichen

A group of 10 participants attended the visiting community of the Gender & Justice network. The objective was to learn more about gender issues, specifically how the different European countries deal with prostitution and human trafficking.

A very rich programm introduced us to the « Frauenhilfe Westfalen » in Soest. This association exists since more than 100 years with today 70’000 members. It is independent but linked to the church. The professionals of the association run different projects like education for staff in Elderly houses, for young families how to keep households, various seminars, etc. They also lead different additional and independent projects like counselling for human trafficking and for prostitutes.

read more

At its meeting in September, the Board decided to re-locate the Oikosnet Secretariat to the Sigtuna Foundation / Sigtunastiftelsen in Sweden. Probably as from December 2014, the new Secretariat in Sigtuna will be the “first post in the chain” for contacting Oikosnet Europe, for making inquiries and suggestions. The Secretariat can best be contacted via

Email: office@oikosnet.eu or phone: +46-8-59258900. All contact information

Read more

One of the future priorities for Oikosnet Europe lies in supporting projects which involve several of its members on themes with a European dimension. As Villigst made evident, the annual conferences are offering a good platform for Oikosnet members to discuss trends and developments, future ideas, co-operations and, in the best of all cases, potential new projects which involve members from different parts of Europe.

Oikosnet Europe stands ready to support joint initiatives and projects of its members; not only by offering a platform for exchange, but also financially. To this effect, the annual conference in Villigst established a budget line for central and eastern European centers to meet around common project ideas as well as, in more general terms, “Criteria for Supporting Projects by Oikosnet Members through Oikosnet Europe”. Read more

Oikosnet Europe is connected with branches of Oikosnet in Asia, Middle East, Africa, North-America and Latin America under the umbrella of Oikosnet International (OI), a foundation under Dutch law. The Board met in Ghana, last August. That is to say: representatives from Europe and Africa were present. Personal circumstances made it impossible to participate for others – illness, closed borders, Ebola, lack of time and/or finances where among the reasons. From Africa only representatives from Ghana were present since international conferences with people from all over Africa were forbidden due to Ebola.  So only a small group of representatives met. Read more

SIDFOT