Ongoing Projects

In 2023, we again implement series of workshops with refugees. As in previous years, we will discuss themes like democracy, freedom, pluralism, civil society, identity, discrimination, racism, gender equality and homosexuality. With the support of the Partnerschaft für Demokratie in Teltow-Fläming and the German Red Cross we will implement fifteen workshops with recently arrived refugees in Wünsdorf (Brandenburg). For an interview about the previous project in 2020 click here. A short report on this project is here. An article on the deliberative ideas behind these workshops is here.

After successfully implementing a children’s project in 2022 with support from the Deutschen Kinderhilfswerk, we significantly expanded our activities in this area in 2023. The original project in Rangsdorf was first extended with the support of the Kinderhilfswerk, and then continued with the support of the Municipality of Rangsdorf. Reports of this can be found here and here. In addition, the Deutsche Postcode Lottery (FA-11408) supported the formation of four similar groups in Teltow Stadt (2), Ludwigsfelde and Werder. The ideas behind the project are that refugee and trauma experiences, language deficits, living conditions in shelters and non-attendance at day care centers lead to significantly lower educational opportunities and future prospects for refugee children. Groups of 10 children each aged 5 to 10 were therefore formed with children from transitional homes. For six months, they are supervised for 2-3 hours a week by two social pedagogues. The focus is on strengthening self-determination, self-control and language skills, creative play and getting to know the outside world.

Although newcomers have regularly been among us for years, citizens, politicians and policymakers often have little idea of the personal backgrounds of these people. This causes not only loneliness, misunderstanding and antagonism. A consequence is also that integration is unnecessarily hampered and that policies aimed at this are less effective than they could be. To gain more insight into backgrounds, we conducted a large number of in-depth interviews with newcomers. Originally, this was done in the context of our project in Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg in which we investigate the living situation of more than a thousand refugees and try to improve this situation with all stakeholders involved. We asked many questions: why did the people come, what was their life like before, what expectations did they have, what do they want to achieve in Germany, what are their experiences so far, what problems do they face, what solutions do they see for this? Visit the interviews here. In November 2023 Transcript Verlag will publish a collection of these interviews, as well as an analysis of common themes and policy recommendations.