Madrid. The Order's Hospitaller, Baron Albrecht von Boeselager (second left) with members of the Spanish Assembly's Board of Directors, during one of his working visits to the Order's seats.

2. FUTURE STRATEGIES
During the Order's first seminar on its future strategies, particular emphasis was given to considerations such as how to organise the Order's future activities in the Hospitaller sector. A series of recommendations were discussed, constituting the focal point of the work carried out over the past five years:
1. The responsibilities of the Associations in their activities.
2. Hospitaller work as direct involvement of members and their greatest priority.
3. Increase of successful initiatives such as the pilgrimage to Lourdes.
4. Co-ordination and exchange of know-how among the Associations.
5. Co-ordination of specific instruction, up-dating and medical research programmes.
6. Co-operation and communication with the relative organisations outside the Order.
7. The Relief Corps as an important means of recruitment and tool for improving the training level of the Order's members.
8. Organisation by Relief Corps of their own co-operation and direct mission system.
9. Commitment in the field of international aid.
10. Aid programme areas:
• Leprosy;
• Rescue during disasters;
• Aid in the medical, social and educational fields in developing countries;
• Aid and assistance in eastern Europe;
• Working for peace, in particular through mediation.

3. CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN HOSPITALLERS
To ensure a more co-ordinated action in the Order's work to improve contacts between Associations and for exchanging experiences, in 1992 the Presidents approved the initiative of the Conference of Hospitallers. In 1993 the Hospitallers of the European Associations and Grand Priories were invited to a joint conference in Malta, the first of its kind. In March 1994 the second conference was held in Budapest. The conferences offer the Hospitallers the chance to get to know each other and constitute an opportunity for study and discussion. In line with the recommendation made by working group 1 to the Malta seminar of 1993, it was also suggested creating a standing Advisory Group for the Hospitaller. Participants in the second Conference of the European Hospitallers in Budapest, on their part, recommended that the members of this Advisory Group be proposed by the Hospitallers.

4. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIVITY SECTORS
The participants in the second Conference of European Hospitallers have adopted the following recommendation for Europe: The philosophy guiding the Order's hospitaller work is help, with the highest standard service 'the modern lepers' of society and those who have suffered the loss of their dignity.
1. Personal involvement of the Order's members in serving the sick
• Lourdes and local pilgrimages with the sick
• Camps for the disabled
• Visiting the old
• Visiting the dying
2. Assistance to the homeless
• Soup kitchens for the poor
• Day centres
• Shelters for the night
3. Measures for the terminally ill
• Hospital structures
• Home nursing services
• Centres for AIDS sufferers
4. Assistance to the old
• Creation of homes for the old
• Visits to those living in these homes
5. Rescue work during disasters
• Aid through own voluntary bodies (ECOM)
• General relief work
6. Foreign aid
• Research and treatment for leprosy
• AIDS
• Medicine collection and shipment
• Abandoned children

Priorities
National situations require specific actions. However, the Order would like assistance to the old and dying, with their common condition of isolation, to be given priority by all Priorities and Associations.

next page
back to summary