Schedule

Our theoretical approach started with a dialogue between a father and his daughter written in 1997 by Tahar Ben Jelloun titled Le Racisme expliqué à ma fille (in German Papa, was ist ein Fremder?). Reading this text helped students open their minds and speak freely about questions like: What is my cultural identity? What is my national identity? What is my native country? The students recollected experiences of discrimination and oppression. We continued working on this subject for about two months, putting emphasis on comparing family structures, family values, youth cultures and fairy tales.

The second part of the project was the project week with intensive workshops utilising different forms of expression such as theatre, music, dance, painting, photography, writing and sculpting. In addition, we produced a documentary consisting of photos, pictures, songs, video tapes, sculptures and paintings. In the third part of the project, we produced a DVD containing the important scenes of the project week in German and English language.

Knowing that young people in other European countries were discussing the same issues, and communicating the results and questions via the Internet and video conferences turned out to be highly motivating for the students. Furthermore, immediately after the project week, both students and teachers noticed that the event had had a strong and sustainable impact on their attitude towards studying. This impact was utilised in the public relations work of Diakonie-Kolleg and ZEB.