AFS Relevant History
The “Our Story” website was begun in Paris in late 1988 as an 8-page summary of the history of the organization. A book-sized version appeared in French in 1991 and, a year later, in English. In 1993, it was presented to the AFS World Congress in Switzerland in the graphic form of six posters, with explanatory notes. Its designer, Alan Albright, a Returnee ( USA to France, SP, 1958) and AFS volunteer gives this description:
From its inception the ‘Story” has tried to address the question ‘Who are we?’ in the spirit of family history where one learns much about the children by studying the lives of their parents and grandparents! It is in the form of a layered synthesis, linked to a growing library of primary and secondary texts. The last chapter is missing, however. The one with the title of M. E. Eiseman’s 1987 book: ‘Everyone has a story to tell.” Stories of partner organizations, chapters, individual AFSers. Stories we can all learn from, and which will surely inspire us, as founder A Piatt Andrew wrote: ‘to make the Old Field Service continue to count in the world long after all of us are gone.’”
Visit the Our Story website
