PREAMBLE

The CIASP Constitution, in its present state, was written at the leadership conference of 1965. Perhaps the most exciting document is the Preamble, a cooperative effort of the students there to crystallize their goals and vision for CIASP.

CIASP Constitution Preamble

The members of the Conference on Inter‑American Student Projects have taken on the responsibility of a Christian organization, whose primary purpose is community development and personal growth.

1. STUDENTS ‑‑ CIASP's Inter‑American summer work projects are initiated and administered by students, with the advice of chaplains and volunteer lay consultants.

2. RESPONSIBILITY ‑‑ We are engaged in the rapidly accelerating movement of discovering and defining mankind. Throughout the world men are awakening, especially to their mutual responsibilities and inter‑dependence. As Christians involved in this process, it is our role to assert the primacy of love in all of man's relationships.

3. ORGANIZATION ‑‑ To fulfill this responsibility an organization is needed which has both unity and cooperation as its points of reference. CIASP is a Catholic movement which welcomes into its ranks other Christians and all who are willing to live in a Christian Student community and respect its principles.

4. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ‑‑ The community we enter and the friendships we make demand a permanent commitment to the movement and its development. Moreover, the development of man in the modern world is synonymous with the development of society. Both in ourselves and in others, we must develop an awareness that man does not act as an isolated individual but as an integral member of his community. Focusing attention on the dynamics of inter‑American development, we strive to act as communities of students, working among people as catalysts as they develop their powers of communal decision and action.

5. PERSONAL GROWTH‑‑In all of our work we are concerned with developing the individual's potentialities for a full, authentic (Christian) life. Our essential task is to achieve deeper contacts and more personal encounters. Sharing the life of people with differing languages, cultures and educational backgrounds means meeting one another specifically and essentially as persons. It means breaking through the masks of language, money, and education ‑‑ learning to discover that essential humanity into which we are all born.

Then, having made this breakthrough and this discovery, we are able to return to our home community, and discover in our companions there, a humanity and a basis of friendship we had never before realized.

Our work is directed towards becoming rich through personal contact by becoming poor. Poor, in the sense of emptying our persons, emptying our minds of facile stereotypes, and emptying our hearts of self‑centered attachments.

INTERNATIONAL BYLAWS

CIPE is an international movement of structurally independent entities bonded together in one community by the common ideals stated in the preamble.

1. The name of this organization shall be

a) in Spanish: Coordinacion Internacional de Proyectos Estudiantiles (CIPE)

b) In English: Conference of Inter‑American Student Projects (CIASP)

c) In French: Conference Etudiante des Projects Inter‑Americains (CEPIA)

2. The symbol of this organization shall be the Western Hemisphere with two crouching figures in black on a background of North and South America in green. The emblem shall say Co-ordinacion Internacional de Proyectos Estudiantiles

3. Relations between member entities shall be provided for through a minimum of twice yearly, meetings to include the Mexican Director. One meeting shall be held in Mexico City, the second to be held outside of Mexico. These meetings are to be called at the discretion of the Chairman

4. The International By‑Laws and Preamble may be revised upon the mutual agreement of the Chairman.