And Yet It Moves! From the darkness of his dungeon, Galileo Galilei raised his voice against the ignorance of the Middle Ages. "And yet it moves!" he said. But they didn't want his knowledge: they locked it away with him.
To accept a new concept of the world would have meant admitting the old one was wrong. Since Galileo's day, however, we have learned a lot about the relation between knowledge and power. It's hard to break with the familiar and try something new. Especially because we have learned that it isn't always a good idea.
SOS Children's Villages has to face new challenges and questions every day. Change takes place in- and outside the organisation. This means we must carefully examine when and how new knowledge must or should be implemented. Reaching an agreement on this is sometimes difficult. Which developments are relevant for SOS Children's Villages and which aren't? Does Hermann Gmeiner's concept still meet the needs of the present, and to what extent does it need to be brought into line with our changing society and with different cultures? It is these questions and others that we attempt to answer in this issue of the SOS-Kinderdorf FORUM.