Definition
Alternative civilian service is service to a government made as a civilian, particularly such service as an option for conscripted persons who are conscientious objectors and object to military service.
Civilian service is usually performed in the service of non-profit governmental bodies or other institutions. For example, in Germany (before conscription was abolished), those in civilian service worked extensively in healthcare facilities and retirement homes, while other countries have a wider variety of possible placements.
Common synonyms for the term are alternative service, civilian service, non-military service and substitute service.
Read more about this topic: Alternative Service
Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)
“Mothers often are too easily intimidated by their children’s negative reactions...When the child cries or is unhappy, the mother reads this as meaning that she is a failure. This is why it is so important for a mother to know...that the process of growing up involves by definition things that her child is not going to like. Her job is not to create a bed of roses, but to help him learn how to pick his way through the thorns.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“... if, as women, we accept a philosophy of history that asserts that women are by definition assimilated into the male universal, that we can understand our past through a male lens—if we are unaware that women even have a history—we live our lives similarly unanchored, drifting in response to a veering wind of myth and bias.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)