History
The history
of the International Falcon Movement - Socialist Educational International began in 1922 with a Conference near Salzburgin Austria.
The socialist educationalist, Otto Kanitz, and the co-founder of the German
Kinderfreunde, Kurt Löwenstain set the key issues of this Conference. Socialist
Education should play a key role in enabling children to criticise and overcome
society. In their leisure time, children should be disconnected from the bourgeois
influences of the school system and have the chance to experience a
counter-world far removed from capitalist society. IFM members also participated in reforming
the state school system. The first secretariat was founded in Vienna, Austria and by 1931 the International had members from several other European countries
and close contacts with non-Europeans. The movement was renamed ‘Socialist
Educational International’ which not only broadened the base of its membership
but also its educational concept. The Scandinavian members in particular, but
also the strong British Woodcraft Folk, contributed their experience to ensure
a new focus on international co-operation and education for tolerance,
cooperation, solidarity and human rights. The new areas of work, which extended
the former frame-work of Falcon activities, resulted in the development of new
statutes and on a new / old name: IFM-SEI in the 1970s.