1999: The Year of the (Expensive) Infrastructure

In the summer of 1999, just as we were congratulating ourselves on our new-found financial stability, the IIRE suddenly faced a major, unexpected expense. Our permit to house students and lecturers in our 24 rooms expired, and the Amsterdam fire inspectors gave us a list of additional safety measures we had to take in order to have our permit renewed. The list included installing an alarm system covering the whole building and communicating directly with the fire department. The cost: over 40,000 Dutch guilders (almost 20,000 US dollars).

Of course we did what the inspectors asked. The safety of participants in our activities is very important to us. In any event, we had no choice; these are legal requirements. The control panel for our sophisticated alarm system now hangs proudly near the Institute front door. Fortunately only a few of our sessions have been disrupted since then by the deafening siren of a false alarm.

New Translation System

Then in the second week of September, just as our fifth Youth School was drawing to an end, we noticed that the sound in our translators' headphones wasgrowing faint. We called in a technician. After several days' wrestling with the system, he declared it completely dead. In fact he said it was almost miraculous it had lasted so long: 17 years, when such systems usually give up the ghost after 10. The truth is, the IIRE is at an age when much of our original equipment is bound to give out in a relatively short period.

Without translation we are of course helpless. At best the international exchanges that are the lifeblood of our work here take twice as long without simultaneous translation equipment, which means that at most half as much dialogue takes place. In any event, we scrambled and haggled in order to get a new translation system installed by the time the North-South School began on 23 October. The new system is a very good deal for high-end professional equipment, tailored exactly to our needs. Though reasonable in technical terms, the cost - about $16,000 US including tax - was way beyond our out-of-pocket budget. Only the generosity of our donors enabled us to pay the bill without making deep cuts in our programmes.