Matt Cherry takes up IHEU post

Matt Cherry is the new Secretary for Development and Public Relations at IHEU. Matt, who is 27, had previously worked at the British Humanist Association for three.and.a-half years, the last two as Public Relations Officer. He began working full.time at the IHEU office in Utrecht in January of this year. Matt's brief is 'to advance the world-wide influence of humanism'. Here, he talks to the editor, Jim Herrick, about the challenges ahead.

What brought you to humanism in the first place?

I went to church primary school - not because my parents were religious but because there wasn't a non-religious alternative. I was given a fairly religious education, where the Bible was taught as true. But it wasn't oppressively religious. I remember reaching what I later learnt was Pascal's position when I was about 10 - I didn't think this God story was very likely, but I thought it was a much better bet to pray in assembly than not to pray, because if there was no God then praying was pointless and harmless, and if there was a God, then I had myself covered!

As a teenager and later, I was always very interested in moral, social and political issues as well as philosophy, cosmology, and so on. But although my position was always passionately humanist, I never knew the word 'humanist', let alone about the existence of a humanist movement. This was true even when I studied philosophy at University College London -- Jeremy Bentham's 'ungodly hole in Gower Street'. The invisibility of organised humanism seems to me to have been almost total.

It wasn't until after I went to an appalling religious funeral of a friend that ! made a determined effort to find an organisation that promoted a non-religious alternative. I was unsuccessful in this search, until, by chance, I saw an Agony Aunt recommending the British Humanist Association for non-religious ceremonies. When

I got this information, I was delighted to discover how completely they fitted with my beliefs and concerns. I had found my natural home. Not long after joining I began doing voluntary work and later joined the staff.

Yes, naturally I joined the BHA with a strong animus to make them more visible. The humanist movement had in a sense failed me. I was always too much of a freethinker to sign up to a particular political party, and single issue pressure groups could never capture more than one of many important issues. So I had no channel for my views and concerns and ideals. If only I had known about humanism, and been able to join a group, I would have become such a committed member.

The low profile of humanism deprives it of so much of its natural support. And the support of individual activists is so important. Unless and until it is large enough to employ a large professional staff, a humanist group is its activists. If humanism is to thrive, groups must reach out more. They must make themselves known and make themselves attractive to potential members.

The post is an obvious one for an organisation that wishes to develop, that sees the need to be proactive in the advancement of humanism.

The real question is why now? The IHEU has been very successful in recent years in developing, or finding, new groups in countries that have not had a humanist organisation before. But I think that there is a danger that man), of the small, new groups will wither on the vine unless IHEU works at nurturing and cultivating them. We must work to support these groups, until the), are self-sustaining.

In addition, IHEU's recent development work has also created, or revealed, a lot of opportunities for yet more groups. In Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe there are new and potential groups looking to the international humanist community for support. Unless IHEU can make a positive and active response to these opportunities, they ma), disappear.

We now have a chance to make humanism truly world wide. We must seize that chance.

We must have a bold, strong, high-profile development strategy. And this means developing and expanding IHEU's resources -- human, financial and material. It's not as though the IHEU office and executive are sitting around with loads of spare capacity, awaiting only the opportunities for work in order to spring into action. I'm IHEU's only full-time employee, for goodness sake. One of my most important tasks is to solve this dreadful state of affairs! I have to increase the strength of the IHEU, increase its ability to act.

I make no apology for being hard-headed in my approach. What I can achieve on my own is, in real terms, relatively small. So it is vital that IHEU moves forward to a higher level of operation. This will be my priority.

An obvious way of achieving this is by attracting more funds. We can make a good start to this through direct fund raising, recruitment of individual members and so on. But beyond a certain · point, this work will have to go hand in hand with improvements in the IHEU, in order to make it more attractive to donors and supporters.

I should also add here that I hope I may be of service to member organisations in their own work and planning. I do have considerable experience of working for and developing a national group, as well as knowledge of the experiences of many other groups. I think this may enable me to advise and help groups, if they so request --especially small to medium-sized western groups. I think that, ideally, IHEU should be able to play a role in helping all its member organisations.

Firstly PR, in the sense of publicity and media contact, can raise the profile of IHEU and humanism. The press releases I have already done have created interest from important media organisations, such as the BBC World Service, and I have established some excellent leads for future coverage. It is already clear that there are papers and broadcasters who don't need that much persuasion to provide humanist coverage - we just need to contact them.

But if we want to continue and increase our coverage, we must work hard at developing our presentation and our contacts. You can get a lot of fruit the first time you shake the tree, but in the longer-term you need to work at cultivation.

We must become better at seizing media opportunities, and I think this will largely depend on member organisations getting into the habit of passing opportunities on to IHEU. I think the work between the German groups and IHEU regarding the reference to God in the German Constitution is a very good example of the potential here. The German humanists did a lot of work, but this work was greatly assisted by getting IHEU's backing for their stand. The work I did to draft and publicise the IHEU Statement on this then benefited both the Germans and IHEU.

I also think public relations, effective communication, is important in making sure we give ourselves credit where credit is due. IHEU does a lot of work that while very good in itself, does not directly strengthen humanist organisations nor is it visible to most humanists. I think much of the excellent work of IHEU representatives at international bodies falls into this category. It is important that we publicise these achievements, that we show humanists the value of the work we are doing.

You seem keen to increase communication between IHEU and its member organisations?

Yes, and between the member organisations themselves. I hope to act as a facilitator for much greater communication between all humanist groups and activists. I am trying to monitor and increase the interchange of magazines between humanist groups around the world, (see p.ll).

There are many other valuable ideas for increasing cooperation and networking between humanist groups. Two areas I am looking into are Electronic-mail and 'twinning' or 'partnerships' between groups, especially where the partners come from the prosperous West and the much poorer South. And I also think the new style International Humanist News is an excellent resource for increasing the flow of news and ideas between humanists, so I hope we can increase the use that is made of it.

In addition to the direct benefit from increased communication and contact, I am attracted to these ideas because they help to build what I call the fabric of international humanism, They encourage communications, support and inspiration between disparate humanist groups and in so doing increase the strength of worldwide humanism. For this reason, I also think that a large individual

membership of IHEU is essential or a strong international movement. I therefore hope that we will be able greatly to increase membership, and subscribers to the International Humanist News too. Of course, members' subscriptions can be an important supplement to our income, but more than that they are a great human resource, giving support and help and ideas.

Our proposal for developing humanist networks in the developing world has been favourably received by HIVOS -- the Dutch humanist group for cooperation with developing countries. If all goes to plan, we will receive NLG 100,000 a year for the next two years. There are many constraints on how we can use this money, of course, but we believe that it will be targeted on a very important area.

The money should be available for the support of networks, groups and projects that strengthen the role of humanist groups in developing countries. HIVOS appreciates the role these groups can play as a positive force in society, countervailing negative trends and traditions. Humanism stresses the value and right to self-determination of every individual. And humanist groups work to overcome prejudices and injustices that marginalise people because of their beliefs or lifestyle or sex and so on.

We will only be able to provide short-term funding, so the projects must become self-sustaining. We must help the groups to help themselves. We believe that helping humanist groups to set up the communications infrastructure necessary for them to have an impact in their society is the most effective way of using this money.

Obviously though, this support from HIVOS does not mean wealthier humanists should stop giving to their poorer colleagues. Quite the contrary - this programme was attractive to HIVOS because of the synergy that comes from providing money to projects that will also benefit from the support and the infrastructure of the international humanist movement. The effectiveness of the support of each of the parties is increased because of the support of others.

The nature of this HIVOS funding is instructive. IHEU's appointment of a development officer, along with the networks, contacts and projects already established, were vital to persuading HIVOS it was worth giving us financial support. This reflects the more general truth that the better our work, the higher our profile, the stronger our infrastructure, and the greater our achievements, then the more money and support we will receive.

My appointment is one part of the attempt to break into this kind of virtuous circle; but it is not enough on its own. We must all now make a big effort to help IHEU take off. Without a big effort by everyone, my appointment will be a vital opportunity missed.

Creating a momentum and an ethos for growth and development.

Perhaps the most important part of my job and the hardest, will be to act as a catalyst and coordinator for everyone else's efforts. There are a lot of very able and talented individuals involved in IHEU, and many of them are already working very hard for us. We have to improve communication and coordination to ensure we are maximising the benefit from this. And we have to encourage and coordinate the international efforts of national and local groups.

Cooperation, synergy and momentum: all these require everyone to make an effort and they all require a positive ethos that sustains, encourages and rewards the enthusiasm for humanism that we all share.