Servas Open Doors

File Servas Open Doors is an international, non-governmental, interracial hospitality association present in over 125 countries and run mostly by volunteers. Founded in 1949 by Bob Luitweiler and his friends as a peace movement, Servas International is a non-profit, worldwide, cooperative, cultural exchange network bringing people together to build understanding, tolerance, mutual-respect, and world peace. Like other hospitality organizations, it promotes world peace by encouraging individual person-to-person contacts.

Servas means "to serve", in the sense of "serve peace", in the language Esperanto. The organization was originally called Peacebuilders.

It operates through a network of hosts around the world who are interested in opening their doors to travelers, and through open-minded travelers who want to know the countries they visit from within. Travelers and hosts are usually interviewed when they apply to join the organisation according to branch (member country) practice; travelers write a self-introduction on a special form valid one year, that is shown to hosts upon arrival.

Servas International has consultative status as a non-governmental organization with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, currently with representation at many of the UN's hubs of activity.

There are over 16,000 Servas 'open doors' scattered throughout almost every country in the world, but are more present in wealthy countries. Due probably to a lack of ability to use internet, and having a conservative basis, Servas has not grown as most similar hospitality organizations born recently. 30 year ago, Servas had 8,000 members worldwide; it has just followed the general increase of population in each country. There are not official general statistics, but in Italy in 2007 the average age of members was 52 years old with a slight predominance of females.