A Guiding Report

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Foreword

From 12. - 20. June 2011 16 young people took part in a workshop called Training Democracy. This workshop was about getting to know methods of Betzavta and pedagogcial diversity. Betzavta (in English: together) was originally created at the Adam Institute for Democracy and Peace in Jerusalem to support the education of democratic principles in Israeli society and to show ways of conflict-free and democratic ways of decision making. Pedagogical diversity is a concept to show problems as well as solutions in transcultural societies and to help raising the awareness of transcultural elements in our societies and their potential of conflicts as well as chances in everyday life.The Training Democracy workshop gathered young people from Turkey, Russia, Palestine, Israel and Germany for one lovely week in Bremen in order to get to know these concepts and to discuss about experiences and chances of these concepts. All of the participants are active in different parts of social work in some way: either as volunteers in organisations, as teachers or as students of pedagogic or social work.But this workshop was not only meant to deal with concepts and discuss them. It was also about getting to know people who are living in environments, which seem hardly to be comparable with one´s own living circumstances.The participants had the possibility of a two-sided training in democracy: the theoretical parts and tasks of the seminar and on the other hand one week of living, learning, working and talking with people with different cultural backgrounds.And besides all modules, games and discussions being part of the programm democracy became reality in everyday´s fights, jokes, agreements and exchanges of information starting at breakfast and continuing while exploring the city of Bremen or having a drink in the evening.Looking back, by these two components of the workshop resulted in a special experience for everyone who took part.According to these two components this report will be divided into two parts, too: one part refers to the experiences from the perspective of a participant, the other part documentates all modules and games of the workshop giving hints and tips for a successful workshop.Each part of the report is splitted into the story part and the documentation-part in order to enable a direct comparison of the two components of the workshop.The report starts with a short introduction of all organisations who had been involved in the realisation of the workshop.

Have fun while reading!

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The Participating Organisations

To realize Training Democracy several organzations were active and cooperated to get a diverse pool of participants for this seminar. In the end there were 2 participants from Russia, 5 from Germany, 5 from Turkey, 3 from Palestina and three from Israel. Thanks to these organizations and their networking it was possible to have a workshop with open minded individuals from different social and cultural backgrounds, who were interested in exchanging their points of view and experiences in life.To get a short overview about these organizations each one of them will get a short characterization on the following sites.

Youth Human Rights Group - Regional branch of Karelia (Russia)

YHRG is an independent non-governmental, non-profit, non-political organization officially registered June, 29, 2000 in Petrozavodsk.Its aims are the protection of human rights and building of a just democratic open society in Russia.YHRG´s purposes of their actvities are a contribution to the realization of human rights protection programs and a support of human rights protection movement, an active support and a realization of youth education projects, a contribution to the development of non-profit human rights protection organizations and civil initiatives.Furthermore, YHRG is working on maintaining educational and civil activity for the prevention of the actions of fascism, nationalism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, chauvinism, extremism and nazis, encouraging the development of intellectual, cultural and spiritual potential of youth supporting actively anti-militarist, tolerance and peace movement and defending democratic values. The activity of YHRG is carried out at the expense of its members, grants of charity foundations, private donations. Students, schoolchildren and teachers volunteer in the organization. The group is in close contact with a number of human tights protection organizations in Russia and abroad, being a participant of European anti-racism network “United” and “Youth Choose Peace” international peacemaking movement.

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Genctur (Turkey)

Genctur aims to dimish prejudices among the young people of different countries and cultures by activities of short & long terms like youth exchanges, study tours and international voluntary work camps. To reach this aim, Genctur offers intercultural learning seminars, volunteers & camp leaders trainings & youth meetings The organization hosts volunteers from different countries and cultures as well as sending Turkish vounteers abroad for short or long term projects.

Al Tariq (Palestine and Israel)

Al Tariq – The Palestinian Institute for Development and Democracy was established in 2006 by local leaders and prominent members of the Palestinian peace camp. The goal of Al Tariq is to empower and educate Palestinian society to promote development, education and democracy by using non-violent means to resolve the conflict, combat hatred, violence and extremism.They focus on developing women, nurturing future leaders of a democratic Palestinian state and creating the framework for reconciliation once a political agreement is reached. Al Tariq does this by developing and administrating several development projects in Palestine and partnering with the Parent’s Circle Families Forum, a joint Palestinian-Israeli organization that is works with bereaved families on both sides of the conflict.Al Tariq in Arabic literally means “the way,” or the path. Today, Palestinians have serious choices to make about which way their future will go. The goal of Al Tariq is to inspire Palestinians to choose paths of non-violence, dialogue and democracy because these are the best ways to build a socially just society and future Palestinian state.Al Tariq is a non-governmental organization registered with the Palestinian Authority and funded by contributions from foundations, governments and individuals primarily in Europe and North America.

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Gewitterziegen (Germany)

Die Gewitterziegen are a foundation with the aim to encourage intercultural pedagogical work with girls. In the education center of Gewitterziegen the main points of this aim habe been realized since 1991. Target group of the center are girls and young women with different cultural und social backgrounds from 6 years old on. The team of the center consists of well trained women with experiences in the field of pedagogical working with youth and girls. Within the opening hours there are always contact persons for girls or young women available. All projects and activities of the foundation have a focus on intercultural living and learning as well as aiming for the equality of girls and women in society, culture and work. These projects consist of different freetime, cultural and educational actions and programmes, based on the reflection of (individual) female living conditions and encouraging female autonomy and female individualities.The center gives girls and young women the opportunity to deal with new possibilities as well as a support to find out their strenghts, powers and own identity by individual processes.

Jugendhaus Buchte / Naturfreundejugend Bremen

Since 1963 the Young Naturefriends (NFJ) Bremen is acknowledged as a youth organisation worthy of patronization. Since then the NFJ Bremen has provided highly diverse offers for children and youths scattered all across Bremen. In 1973 young Bremen Naturefriends took possession of an empty property in the Buchtstrasse 14/15 and made it the centre of their activities. Over the years the name "Jugendhaus Buchte" (youth house Buchte, JB) became an established term for the house users and the citizens of Bremen. The JB is available for all children, youths and young people (up to 27 years of age) who live, go to school or work in Bremen. Youth groups, initiatives and associations can use the rooms in the house for their activities. The JB is located directly near a main junction of public transport and therefore it is easily accessible for young people from the entire city.At the moment the JB is working with 2 employees (30 hours per week) and many voluntary helpers. Main target of the JB and all the linked projects is to reach a high participation resulting in chances for young people to organise projects and activities by themselves

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LidiceHaus (Germany)

LidiceHaus is an education center which offers different seminars and projects for young people and social workers. It´s key aspects are the living conditions of youth and the suppor of discussion meetings about democracy, social justice and society. Together with Service Bureau Jugendinformationen LidiceHaus realizes international youth meetings, cultural events and youth culture festivals. It has its own canteen and several sleeping rooms as well as several seminar rooms which makes it possible to have great international long-term events at LidiceHaus. It is also the place where Traning Democrcay was held and all participants were accommodated.

ServiceBureau Jugendinformation (Germany)

The ServiceBureau Jugendinformation (translation: service office youth information) was founded in 1991 as a part of the educational youth centre LidiceHaus.They offer guidance and support for international youth exchanges organized by youth workers and other active people involved in the field of international youth exchanges. The ServiceBureau especially informs about the EU programme “Youth in Action”.Another part of its work is supporting and advising young people to find opportunities for going abroad: workcamps, international youth exchanges, volunteer services (especially the European Voluntary Service – EVS), internships and so on. ServiceBureau is also very active in the field of media pedagogy and child-welfare and it informs young people on their platform jugendinfo.de about youth-relevant topics.It offers trainings, seminars and workshops for social workers, teachers and youth workers on the topics new media, media pedagogy and international youth work. Servicebureau is financed by the government of Bremen and additional fundings for special projects.

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The Workshop Leaders

Anette Klasing

Anette Klasing is a certified social pedagogue with further training in women counselling and intercultural pedagogy. Anette worked as an expert in civil peace issues in Bethlehem and Jerusalem from 2004 to 2006 and is now working in LidiceHaus with key aspects of girls youth work, gender-related pedagogy, intercultural and international education, peace pedagogy.

Lena Lorenz

Lena Lorenz is a certified pedagogue and head of ServiceBureau Jugendinformation. Lena is advising adolescents who are planning to make trips abroad as well as qualified employees in the field of youth-mobility and international youth work.

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The Author

Well, that´s me. My name is Alex and I am active in the Youth House Buchte for 6 1/2 years by now. At the moment I am studying European Ethnology and Politic Science in Kiel at the CAU and will hopefully achieve the Bachelor degree in 2013. I am 23 years old and even though I actually spend most of the time Kiel I am still able to visit my hometown Bremen as often as possible in order to take part in several workshops, projects and activities such as Training Democracy.Apart from shuttling between Kiel and Bremen I spend my time with organizing concerts, workshops and other funny little things.This report is a part of my internship at Youth House Buchte in Autumn 2011. It took a little bit more time then all involved persons expected...

But...

...here we go!

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Day 0(Sunday, 12.6.11)

My first day of Training Democracy started with a bike ride to the location of the Training Democracy workshop. The workshop took place place at the LidiceHaus in Bremen/Germany, an education center next to a lake and some sport facilities. LidiceHaus is a stonethrow away from a ferry which takes you next to the city center. The education center has a canteen and a lot of sleeping rooms, so that all participants were able to live at LidiceHaus during their stay in Bremen. As well as all other German participants I decided to arrive early the first day in order to be able to give a welcome to all parti-cipants arriving after a long journey. We helped Lena and Anette, the two workshop-leaders, with some arrangements and preparations and waited impatiently for the other participants to arrive. Some of us were already (or still) tired after a week of studying and/or working, but all the other participants would probably be even more tired than us. That is why Annette and Lena decided to declare Sunday as „Arrival Day“ so that everybody could get acclimated with the new surrounding and the group.In the afternoon one group after another arrived, some of them were picked up at Bremen Airport by by an assistant of the LidiceHaus. The group from Turkey was picked up in Hamburg by Ruken, the third workshop-leader. Ruken was born in Turkey and came to Germany when she was four, so she knows the different cultural aspects of both countries very well. Every group was welcomed by everyone who had already arThe first discussions and talks started, mostly about the circumstances of the different journeys.

Living Together

As all participants are living together at one place the group gets a good chance to deepen their "group-feeling" and their ways of exchanging knowledge, values and beliefs.

Local Participants = Good Guides

When participants are coming from different countries and/or cultures to an unknown city and surrounding after a long travel it is a good idea that participants who are familiar with culture and surrounding are signalizing that the guests are welcome. Besides the local participants can be good guides for the guests during the seminar.

Arrival Day?

To arrange an arrival day in the beginning of a long-term seminar is a smooth way to reduce the risk of a culture shock and it makes it easier for all participants to relax after their exhausting journeys.

A New Home

Participants who are familiar with some of the different cultures are a great help for a positive welcome.

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For some of the participants it was quite easy to arrive, e.g. the Germans and the Turks, but the stories of the travel experiences of some Palestinians revealed the first great differences in the lifes of the participants.The group leaders decided to order pizza, because the kitchen of Lidice Haus was closed this day. After lunch some partici- pants went to the lake next to the Lidice Haus to calm down and to relax. We told about our growing ups in Bremen and in Istanbul. At sunset it was getting colder and we went back to Lidice Haus to get some sleep.

The sleeping rooms were separated by gender and the individual wishes of the participants influenced the allocation of the rooms. Most of the rooms were double bedrooms.Everyone went to bed quite early. The Result of this day: travelling really can be more exhausting than working.

"The Food Question"

An important part of the preparation of a seminar is the "food question". The participants may have different eating habits and eating values based on their ethical, moral oder religious beliefs. The workshop leaders should respect the different eating habits and guarantee the fulfilling of everyones needs regarding nutrition.

"The Room Question"Rooms separated by gender, nationality etc. have pros and contras. On one hand these separations can guarantee a more secure feeling for the participants. On the other hand mixed rooms can bring more exchange and diversity in the process of getting to know each other in a seminar. It may be the best option to ask the participants in advance which option they prefer.

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Day 1

(Monday, 13.6.11)

After a peaceful sleep all participants gathered in the canteen for breakfast. In advance all of them had been asked to report their eating habits, e.g. if they eat pork, if they are vegan or vegetarian. Due to this preparation all eating wishes could be fulfilled.Despite the fact that all the national groups were sitting by themselves, some of the participants already managed it to get into contact with unknown participants while eating. This is quite unnormal for the first breakfast of a workshop, but it created a positive atmosphere.After breakfast we had a couple of minutes to brush our teeth before the opening of the seminar.After a short introduction and the official welcome by of Lena and Anette, the first tricky part of the workshop was awaiting the participants: getting to know each other!The hardest part of every workshop is to remember the names of all participants. (Well, for me it is!) Luckily there are some nice simple methods to keep the names of everyone in mind.

The first game of the seminar could also be seen as a warming-up: All participants had to stand in a circle. Then someone started with telling their name and combined it with a personal movement to express

The Name and Gesture Game

Goals: getting to know the names; first introduction game

Duration: 15 min

Material: none

Description: All participants are in a close circle and the trainer starts with telling their name - inlcuding a short movement expressing something which they like to do (e.g. a hobby). After the trainer it is up to the person of the left on the trainer to repeat the name and the movement of his_her neighbour and tocontinue with an own combination of name and movement. Like this every participant has to repeat all previous names and gestures and to hang on the own name and movement.

Learning Names Can Be Fun

A game where participants have to connect their name with a motion or sth. similar helps to memorize the names and brings fun into learning each others names.

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something the person likes. (Example: Hi, my name is Alex and I like to “jump!") The person to the left had to repeat the name and the movement of their neighbour as well as all participants before and added an own combination of their name and a motion.After this exhausting exercise (some participants had been quite creative and sporty by choosing extraordinary movements) we were mixing in methods of pedagogical diversity to deepen our "getting to know each other."All participants got a piece of blank paper and some crayons to write down their name and to add something which is underlining the character or the origin of the name by painting it.

After a couple of minutes everybody presented their name and their painting. The presentations showed that everybody created their own style of interpreting and illustrating the origin or the meaning of their name, some names are international (such as my name) and very common. Some names are connected to memories from childhood, others are referring to religious or historical origins of their names. Some particpants translated their name or meaning from their language or culture into English. Anyway, the results turned out to be really colourful and unique. After this first little insight into diversity pedagogy we

The (Hi)story Of My Name

Goals: getting to know each other, getting to know the (personal) background of the names

Duration: 20-25 min.

Material: Pieces of paper, pens

Description: All participants are getting a piece of paper and some pens. Their task is to write down their name and to paint something about the name in addition. This can be a personal story linked to the name, something about the originof it or its meaning. It is up to the participants to be creative. After 10 minutes the participants have to show and explain their pictures.

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moved right on to another game: a language animation called “How are you?”. For this exercise all participants needed to activate their rusty language skills: the task was to learn a basic expression in all different native languages spoken by the differentparticipants.For this game the different expression of „How are you?“ in the languages Arab, Hebrew, Turkish, Russian and German were written on a sheet at a paperboard, readable for everybody. After collecting the phrases the possible answers „good“, „okay“ and „bad“ were added on the paperboard. Now Lena standing in the middle of the group circle started with the game, ans askedand asking someone in one of the languages how he or she is feeling. Depending on the answer Lena had the chance to get a seat and another person had to stand in the middle. This game was really confusing, the participants were looking desperately to the cardboard for the right expression in the right language but in the end everybody has had a good time while learning the first basic words in the different languages of the participants. After these first exercises it was time for the next introduction of organizational matters by Anette and Lena.

Both of them explained the participants the rules of the house, the meal-times in the canteen and some general rules about behaviour at LidiceHaus. They told us that we would not be the only group in the

How Are You?

Goals: language animation, practising different languages

Duration: 20 min.

Material: flipchart paper, flipchart pen

Description: The group is sitting in a circle with one participant standing in the middle. This person has to finger-point at one person in the circle and ask "How are you?" in English or one of the languages spoken by all present participants. The asked person has three options to answer: "great", "all-right" and "not well". This answer has to be given in the same language the person was asked. If the spo-ken languages of the seminar are not spo-ken by everybody in the seminar, the question and the answers have to be collected and written down on a flipchart paper. This paper should give everybody the chance to look up an answer. If the answer is "great", everybody has to change seats and a new person has to go to the middle of the circle. If the answer is "all-right ", the two neigbours of the pointed person have to change their seats while the person standing in the middle has the chance to to get one of these two places. If the answer is "not well", nothing will happen.

Canteen vs. Group-CookingA canteen can be an important time-saver because the participants do not have to do their cooking. On the other hand cooking together could also deepen the exchanging between the participants, e.g. by cooking special food from their countries.

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Lidice-Haus within the next week and that we would have to share the canteen with other groups. However, arrangements could be made e.g. if we would like to change the seminar plan.After this short instructions of behaviour it was up to us again: All participants were asked to write down on papercards their ideas and opinions about their expectations of this seminar, their fears about it and their questions in respect of the topic of demo-cracy on paper cards. Everyone had ten minutes to write down their thoughts, then they were asked to present and explain their cards.All participants were really motivated, everybody was able to fill out several cards with all their ideas about the two asked questions, some of them even wanted some more time to think about their

aims and expectations of this seminar. It really seemed that for the most of them this seminar was like being pushed into cold water: Everyone was interested in potentials of democracy and diversity, all had made good and bad experiences on that field so far and all had different angles and opinions on these topics, even though all had a similar positive attitude about these two big issues of modern life. These tensions created a variety of statements: Some participants were expecting to learn some new methods for their everyday work, some stated out the

Breaking The Ice

Starting a seminar by asking the participants about their expectations and fears creates a positive atmos- phere between workshop leaders and participants and enables the work-shop leaders to modify the seminar regarding to the expectations of the participants.

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hope to have an exchange about different opinions in order to gain further knowledge and making new friends. Exploring the city of Bremen, this was very popular expectation but political spheres were touched on as well: “How is it possible to build up democracy in my country?” was a frequently asked question.The word to be found most on the paper cards was EXCHANGE, which indicated an open minded feeling towards the following days.Fear was a hard word for a seminar with participants who had a pedagogic background but it is never wrongto listen to oneself closely and consider : What could go wrong within the next days? The outcomes were interesting: a lot of participants feared the manifestation of conflicts based on their different cultural backgrounds or opinions.

This was interesting because conflicts can always be a negative result of exchange, the main purpose of most of the participants. So it seemed that the participants had great expectations but at the same time they feared that the chance of expectations could turn their purpose of exchanging and learning from each other into even more misunderstanding and alienation. Another pointed out fear was the possibility that the national groups could just stay by themselves and talk in their native langua-ges,which was attached to the fear of alienation,too. These points were specific

Diversity Has Its Price

In this seminar diversity was seen both as potential and chance to get in touch with with other ways of living, other beliefs and personalities from different parts of the world. Of course these diversities can result in conflicts as well as different perspectives in discussions can lead to a dead end with no general solution for a certain issue. For the workshop leaders it is important to outline that different meanings and perspectives are equal as long as there is no general definition of right or wrong. The workshop leaders also have to deal with remaining conflicts or problems which often can not be solved. They have to teach the participants, that there are often conflicts everyone has to get along with. So dealing with conflicts is both a skill the workshop leaders should have and also a part the mainly positive aspect of diversity - when there is diversity, there are also different opinions on certain issues which should be seen as something positive and inspiring.

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aspects of this seminar, due to the existing diversity of the participants.The other fears were more or less unspecific, they come up in almost every seminar: having a lack of sleep due to loud participants during the night or being too tired to focus on the contents of the seminar.After a short presentation of the cardboard by Lena and Anette and a discussion of the main expectations and fears it was time for lunch and a bigger break which was spend with talking about the first impressions about the seminar and the „group-feeling“. First deeper contacts were made because everyone had something to talk about and so far it seemed that the group was an an inspiring mixture of different personalities.After lunchbreak there was enough power to dive into the fields of democracy. The next task was to documentate or own personal „Biography Line“.Everyone got a large sheet of paper and had to illustrate somehow their good and bad experiences with democracy and participation in life. After that the biography lines were compared by sharing the personal experiences and presenting them in small groups with participants from every country.It became obvious that there were some main differences in growing up in the different countries represented in the seminar, especially growing up in Israel and Palestine seemed to be quite different than growing up in Germany, Turkey or Russia. The conflict between Israel and Palestine seemed to have an important influence growing up and in attitudes towards democracy and participants, as well. If being forced by law to join the israelian army as an israelian citizen is democratic was one question raised in the groups. The intifadas and the everyday living circumstances in

Biography Line

Goals: get a first insight to everyones personal ideas and experiences with "democracy" and"partici- pation", raising awareness of the relevance of class, race, gender, nationality and other specifics as well as differences in politics and social relationships, fiinding "cross border" similarities

Duration: 1-2 hours

Material: flipchart paper, coloured pens

Description: The first task of this method is the individual drawing of a biography line concerning the personal experiences with "democracy & participation". The realization of the biography line is up to every participant who has to decide how to symbolize experiences and which experiences are symbolized.The second step is a process of sharing in smaller groups of 2-3 persons. IThe participants present their biography lines in their group and discuss them.Possible guiding questions could be e.g.:- Where and when could you experience participation in your life- How would you describe "democratic participation"?- Do women and men participate in the same way in society?

The last step is to collect significant simi- larities of experiences in democratic parti- cipation.

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the Holy Land were discussed as an limitation of free living in a democratic way. Living in Soviet Russia under the government Putin and Medwedew was discussed by the biography lines of the russian participants.The German and Turiksh participants brought participation like political voting into focus, which everyone saw as an really important aspect of democracy. The Turkish group did not have the chance to vote for the presidential elections right before leaving Turkey for this seminar, even though they were promised that they were able to vote on the airport. They were very upset about this experience which showed that the voting right was highly important for them. Taking part and working in social projects had been an improvement in the fields of participation and democratization for everyone, especially the Germans and the Turks highlighted these experiences. In both groups the biography lines showed a positive process of gaining democratical rights and participation: started as a child learning to speak, all of them considered themselves as self-reliant and responsible for their surrounding. They interpreted their biography lines as going up towards democracy and participation more and more the older they got. In the other groups the biography lines were going up and down, depending on the political and social situation.These comparisons were a good start for getting into a dialogue:The result of this dialogue that participation and democracy is starting in the family and is well linked to other evolutions in childhood, e.g. learning basic abilities such as talking and walking. The first experiences are getting more and more rights in the family, building up own opinions and doing things on your own.

Some Shapes Of Participation To Come?

This method is a good way to deal with different ways and aspects of participation and their compara-bility raising questions like: What main aspects of participation can be found in different situations of participation? What chances and potentials does participation have in different situa-tions, e.g. school, work, politics? Where are limits of participation in different societies? How deep do you have to analyze political, cultural and social structures to identifiy different types of participation and their potentials? Dealing with the participants expe-riences of participation, oppression, democracy, war, justice and injustice helps to widen to view towards a lot of different ways of participantion but also deepens their view regarding the potential of participation in different situations and societies.

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At the same time, structures and the realisation of participation are also linked to the social status of the family and the social structures in society.

At this point the already mentioned differences in the different countries became evident. The status and the social and political structures in everyday life do not only affect the social status and the basic rights, they also affect the way of thinking, the sense for criticism and the ability to find different solutions for the own way of life. Most of the participants did not have the feeling that this kind of criticism had been taught at school, it was more or less grounded in friendships and activities in social movements or groups. For those who did not have these institutions in life, questions about democracy and society came up at university. A lack of democracy and/or participation got evident due to political changes or happenings like the conflict between Palestine and Israel, but also by not being accepted by the right university or having private problems.The last point of discussion in the small groups had been the question of the participation of men and women in society. Are equal rights existing or is there an existing lack of equality?In Germany this question is really popular, men and women have the same rights but in society people are still being judged by

Same Same But Different

When participants are discussing their experiences with participation, politics, freedom and oppression and start to critisize or praise social structures and conditions their opinions are not based on scientific data. They are based on personal feelings and personal experiences, they are subjective. Such personal stories can be a method to compare the influences of different institutions in life and how they affect your life and your way of thinking, especially when all participants have a similar age. But the participants can also compare what they critisize and praise in their own societies. These comparisons can both help by being more precise with critisizing or praising certain issues in society and by dealing with own problems when the problems in other societies become evident.

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their sex, existing gender constructions are still reproducing certain roles of men and women in society which still is affecting everyday life. In Israel there is a similar situation, in Turkey it seems to depend on the region and if somebody is living in a bigger, more pluralistic city or not. In Palestine equality doesn´t exist in the same way as in the other countries. Men and women can have different rights, depen-ding on their religion and interpretation. Unfortunately there was not enough time to discuss this really interesting topic. A short break was used to continue discus-sing about the different experiences with participation and democracy. The seminar continued with another brain-testing exercise: the “Four Corner De-finition Of Democracy". For this exercise Lena and Anette put four different de-finitions of democracy in the corners of our seminar room, one definition in every corner:- a fair election system to elect the

government, one person - vote

- freedom of speech, free media

- freedom of religion

- a human rights based law and independent courts/tribunals

All participants had to decide which definition of democracy they found most convincing. The result showed that there were very different opinions about democracy in the group. In reflection the majority said that it had been difficult to decide for only one definition. One participant even said: „To me, all of these definitions don´t cover all aspects of democracy.“ That was why this person decided to stand in the middle of the room, showing that all of these four definitions of democracy together could at least cover most parts of a definition of democracy.

Four Corner Definition Of Democracy

Goals: raising awareness of principles of democracy and its complexity

Duration: 20 min.

Material: 4 papers with definitions of democracy

Description: The participants enter a room with 4 definitions of democracy written on 4 papers which are lying on the ground. There is one definition on a paper in each corner of the room there is one definiiton lying down.

The definitions of democracy can be different since there are several ones. Here you have 4 examples:

- a fair election system to elect the govern-ment, one person - vote

- freedom of speech, free media

- freedom of religion

- a human rights based law and independent courts/tribunals

The participants have 5 minutes to decide which definition describes democracy in their point of view. After their decisions the participants from all 4 corners have to explain why their definition is the best or the closest one. When all corners have presented their definition the group will discuss the different definitions and their strenghts and weaknesses.

When participants are bending the rules of a method to line out their opinion this can be helpful for a process of discussing or just hindering the method. Sometimes the method might be misunderstood but it is also possible that the opinions of the participant are not covered in the method. ither way it is good to give every participant the chance to explain their opinion.

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After so many new views, discussions and activities it was time for dinner and some time off which was spent with relaxing, going outside and exploring LidiceHaus.At the end of the first day Lena and Anette had something special in their minds to get out of LidiceHaus and explore Bremen: a city rallye!Therefore the participants were split up into four groups (in every group was one person from Bremen to make sure that no group would get lost) with slightly different tasks and starting points. There were crazy tasks such as „How often can you find the number 366 in a distance of 50 metres?“ or „Bring as much persons as possible in this phone-cell!“. But there were also tasks dealing with the history of Bremen and its sights. Surely this city-rallye deserved its name: „Democrazy“. In the end all groups met in a pub in the center of the alternative district in Bremen, had a couple of drinks and headed back home.

Some stayed a bit longer to explore other parts of Bremen while others headed straight back to LidiceHaus with the ferry.With this excursion the first „real“ day of Training Democracy ended. Well, at least the official part. As usual, some participants continued talking about different topics, some only wanted to get some fresh air outside while others discovered the computer-room of LidiceHaus and got connected with their friends at home.

Message In A Bottle

An internet connection can be a great help for homesick parti-cipants in order to stay in touch with their friends at home. Fortunately, Lidice-Haus has both: wireless-lan-connection and a computer room with internet access.

Here you have a blueprint of some tasks of the "Democrazy Group Challenge":

1. Ask three persons on the streets, what democracy means to them. Bring us the three statements.

2. Exchange the potatoes with the local people into something valuable for you.

3. Take a picture of a situation/poster/… that shows for you diversity in this town.

4. Make a song about a topic your choice.

5. Ask people which place they recommend in this town to explore multiculturalism.

6. Take a picture of something that surprises you on your way through the city, because you didn’t expect this here.

7. Bring us something very typical for Bremen.

8. Close your eyes for five minutes and walk through the city and collect different impressions of this town/country just by your ears and body. Let a partner guide you. Ask someone to take a photo of this happening. How does it feel to walk like this?

At 21:00 everybody who likes is gathering at the LAGERHAUS in the Schildstr. 12, 28203 Bremen.

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Day 2 (Tuesday, 14.6.2011)

After breakfast and a morning coffee the group headed outside because the first task of the day was using the perfect surrounding of the LidiceHaus. The group gathered in a circle. Everyone had to find a partner and every pair got a small mirror. One person of the pair had to hold this mirror under their eyes so the reflection was the only thing to be seen through the eyes. The other had the task to guide the person with the mirror. After 10 minutes the roles were changed.

This exercise was taken very differently by the group. Some really had fun and enjoyed the special views whileothers really felt insecure because of their lack of sight. Also the guiding partners behaved all different. Some took a direct leading action and led their partners to special places for a special view, e.g. under a tree, while others were very passive and always asking what the person with the mirror wanted to see.After this exercise the experiences were discussed resulting in that people in new situations behave different than usual. But it got evident as well, that really everybody behaves somehow different in new situations and that you should be aware of it. After another short break with some more coffee the participants had to make new

Mirror Reflection

Goals: see the world with different eyes ;-)

Duration: 20-25 min.

Material: little mirrors

Description: The group is divided into couples. Every couple gets a small mirror. Then one of the couple has to hold the mirror in front of the eyes and start to walk around in the surrounding of the place of the seminar. These persons are allowed to see their surrounding through their mirrors. The partner has to guide and to take care that nothing horrible happens. After a while the roles are swapped. When evertybody has guided and "mirrored", the group gathers again to reflect the gained impressions.

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friends: Lena was offering the group a basket with potatoes and everyone had to pick up one potatoe. After this more or less randomized selection the task was to give acharacterization of the potatoe based on the look and everyone´s own creativity.After 15 minutes the group was divided into two group. In these groups the presentations were held. Some participants turned out to be really creative: names had been given, stories about the heritage and the reason for dents, scars or soft spots had been invented. Some participants even compared their potatoes with the other potatoes and somehow the own potatoe always turned out to be the best and prettiest one.

After the presentations the different methods were discussed as well as the behaviour of the potatoe presenting persons. It was funny when the groups came to the point of making their minds up about how potatoes are treated normally and that most had seen the uniqueness of the potatoes as something positive while uniqueness in society can be seen both good and bad. Even though there had been comparisons between the potatoes of their owners, there was no conflict arising. This was bringing everyone back to the discussion about the chances and risks of diversity. Fortunately there had been no potatoe-fights...After this task of imagination and creativity

My Personal Citron/Potatoe

Goals: recognizing the different per- ceptions, showing that similar looking things may appear different to others and may have a special meaning to them, making aware that persons and things are often judged by their cover and not by their insights

Duration: 1 hour

Material: a citron (or any vegetable/fruit you like - as long as everybody gets the same kind) for every participant, paper and pens

Description: In the middle of the group is a basket filled with citrons is placed and every participant is asked to take one. Then everybody gets a sheet of paper and a pen. Now everybody has to study the personal citron and to prepare a short characterization of it. After 15 minutes the group gathers again (or - depending on the size of the group - will be divided into smaller groups) and everybody has a short time to characterize their personal citron.

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the following method was about headingback to reflect personal social reality: the Power Flower. Everyone got a paper with a flower which had a blossom, divided into several categories and two outstanding petals for each category. For each category there was one power-petal and one faint-petal.

The task was to colour the category-petals, which the colouring person was seeing their belonging to in society. There were categories like „religion“ (the petals: „majority in your country” and “not the majority in your country“), „health“ („healthy“, „sick“), children („with children“, „without children“), sex („male“, female“). The powerful one was the bigger one whereas the smaller one was symbolizing a weaker petal. After colouring all petals everyone could somehow guess their "potential of power" in society. The discussion about this exercise was controversial which was showing that this game had taken social differences and their outcomes to an extreme. Also the expression „power flower“ led to misunder-understandings: some participants thought that it would be positive and it was intended to have a lot of coloured power-petals. But in fact this game was meant to show some factors of social unequality which are linked to the topic of diversity. The second critical comment to this game was that it did not properly reflect social reality by just having

Power Flower

Goals: finding out roles and memberships of different parts of society and their linkage to power, privileges and discrimination

Duration: 1-1,5 hours

Material: paper with printed-on power flower

Description: All participants are asked to fill their personal power flower by colouring all petals that in their opinion they belong to in their society. The longer petals of the flower are symbolizing a powerful part of society whereas the shorter petals are symbolizing a weaker part of society. The petals which seem to be more important should be coloured in a visible and strong colour and the less important petals should be coloured in a subdued colour. After that 3-4 participants of different national groups gather in a small group in order to share and compare their flowers. Third step: The whole group gets together and reflects the following questions:

- Which persons of the smaller groups seem to belong to a well accepted and powerful part of society?

- Which groups/petals in society did we join by choice and which not?

- Which groups/petals are more piblic and which ones are more private?

- Which groups/petals are not represented in this seminar?

Attached to this report you can find a blueprint of a Power Flower.

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a bunch of categories and always only two options. But these critical comments about the game led to an interesting discussion on how personal issues can affect the status in society, how stigmata can be built on the base of connecting the potentials to be successful to certain characteristics, believes and personal histories. Although these phenomenas are existing in the societies of the participants, the existing stereotypes may vary in each society. Therefore in the end the discussion was reduced to gender issues because this was something everyone could relate to in every society.After a long break and lunch the afternoon started with a very obvious way of showing diversity: all country groups had to present their works about their home countries.Every group had about 15-20 minutes for presentation, followed by a discussion. As already mentioned, the task to prepare a presentation had been given in advance of the workshop. Fortunately each group had done so and it was able to start right away. Each group had a data projector, a laptop

and a scrap-board for this p r e s e n -tation. Each p r e s e n -tation turned out to have quite a differ-ent focus. The German group was fo-cused on po l i - t i c a l issues in connection

with youth work and growing up in Germany. The group started with the

Show Me How You Live

The presentation of the home-countries by the participants is a nice way to get to know everybody´s living circumstances. It may help to under-stand the different personalities and their values in the seminar group.

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political system, showing the possibilities for young people to take part in inter-national exchanges and participation and it presented the youth house Buchte, the sending organisation of most of the German group.The Israeli presentation was focused on the history of the state and the state-building by showing the development and the rise of quality in life.This group provided an insight about growing up in Israel and aspects of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.These insights were deepened by the group from Palestine who focused their presentation on their loss of land due to the state building of Israel and their feeling of repression. They gave a short overview about the aspects of the repression and pointed out that young people don´t have many options for participation and a free and democratic decision how to live their life.

The Turkish group compared their political system and everyday life with the situation in western european countries and pointed out that it was their wish to achieve a level of democracy and democratization, equal rights and freedom (e.g. for women and minorities) as in Germany or France.In the end the Russian group gave some detailed informations about their sights aof the political situation in Russia and how the western world woud see this situation. They

Presentations Of Countries

Goals: getting to know the structure of politics, the state of democracy, working places and living conditions in the life of the participants

Duration: 30 min. per group

Material: depends on group

Description: The following task was given to all participants in advance of the seminar:“Please gather in your country group with the other participants and prepare the presentations of your country for the second day of the seminar. Please bear in mind also to explain basics about the political situation in your country, because not everybody will now about them. Also maps, leaflets, brochures, pictures, power point presentations and so on will be helpful to give us an idea of your work (data projector and laptop are available at the house in case you need them). Every presentation should not be longer than 15-20 minutes maximum…because we will need some time to ask questions and so on as well! Also creative forms are welcome like role plays and so on!”

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showed two films about some projects realized by their organisation. The second film about rape and murder of young russian women was shocking to most of the other groups because it was direct, showing violence and it was quite scary and dark. After this movie there had been the biggest discussion of all. The intention of thesecond movie was to encourage young women to be aware of the dangers ofgoing out alone and without personal pro-tection by friends or family. But for most of the spectators it rather showed the helplessness of young womenagainst rape and murder. Though all agreed that active work in that field is important and good it got evident that people in a different way with danger and inequality and that there are different ways of making society aware of existing problems. As well it got ovious that for the Russian participants it was quite usual to show a hard, provocating abd scarying picture to make people aware.Each group dealt different with this task of presenting its country. All groups gave a little overview of some basic data and statistics, but after these basic informations each group focused on other aspects of their origin. All groups made up their mind in advance and thought about what could be most interesting for the other groups. What is typical and what is special about my home country? What are the basic conditions for young people to grow up and live their own lives? How do we see other countries, especially the countries ones represented at this meeting?Regarding these aspects the presentations of the countries had been a good little indicator about the circumstances and the self-reflection of (young) people in every country and society compared to other countries and societies.The presentations of the countries took a

Worth The Effort

As already mentioned, all parti-cipants from a country had to prepare some material or a pre-sentation in english for this method in advance. These preparations can be stressful for the participants (especially when some of them didn´t know each other before), but in the end it is really worth the effort. These presen-tations can give a hint on how the participants want to have the country seen by others or on ewhat they think is important to know about their country. It is a creative way letting the groups tell more about theirselves and their home- countries.

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long time, everyone turned out to be really exhausted. Nobody wanted to go outside and everyone was just hanging around in LidiceHaus either using the world wide web to get in contact with friends or spending the evening in the lobby to have a chat. Even after this short time it turned out that every evening other participants were active talkers or open for discussions and exchanges about knowledge and experiences.

"Late Night LidiceHaus"

From day to day the lobby of LidiceHaus got more and more crowded and important as a "late-night-meeting-point". It is good to have such a place where everybody can meet up in an informal way.

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Day 3(Wednesday 15.6.11)

The third real day of the seminar started with a painting session. When the participants entered the seminar room there were several desks had been put together and one large piece of paper covered all these desks. On this Paper there were several boxes of crayons. Anette and Lena told everyone to find a place staying around the paper. The next task was to create and paint own personal territories with boundaries. These territories had to be filled with paintings of stuff or things the owner of the territory liked, e.g. political symbols or just funny drawings.

After creating their own territory everyone was asked by Anette and Lena to interact with the other participants in a non-verbal way to ask them if they could paint something into their territories – first with the neighbours, then with every participant.And this was when the chaos began: everyone was walking around,looking at the different territories, making their mind up what they could contribute to the different territories. But there was the big problem: how to find out to whom the territory was belonging to? The participants dealt quite different with this problem: While some people had paid attention in the beginning of the task and had noticed where the others had been

My Territory And My Boundaries

Goals: strenghten the awareness and sensitivity about the personal needs, borders and boundaries of others, learn to express your own needs and boundaries

Duration: 1,5 hours

Material: one large paper(large enough so that all participants can place

around the paper), crayons

Description: After placing the large paper on a table (or several tables put together) all participants get some crayons. First step: everybody has to draw boundaries of their area, then all start to paint and to fill their individual territory. Second step: when all have finished the process of interacting begins. The participants have to get in contact with their neighbours in a non-verbal way to contribute something to the neighbour´s territory. The task now is to find out how much the neighbour allows you to contribute. At the same time you have to regulate the contributions to your own territory.Third step: when the action is stopped, the interacting neighbours are asked to describe their experiences during the method: At first they should share their feelings about their area and the contributions.Last step: the workshop leaders ask about the general impressions of this method and starts a discussion.

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staying so that they knew which territory belonged to which participant, others felt completely lost and spent a lot of time just to find the right person for the different territories. Others stood silent and really passive while somewrote and painted something into territories even without asking permission.

These different methods of dealing with the situation led to a a lot of funny moments and a few beautiful territories were created. But some territory owners felt unhappy because in their opinion their territory was ruined by „vandals“ who did not ask for permission to contribute to their territory. These “victims” were already expressing unhappiness during the process of exchange.A discussion of what had happened started. Everyone was asked to go back to their territories and all participants could tell or were able to tell the others how they felt about their territory after the process of interacting.As mentioned before, some were really happy about their territories, they felt that something really beautiful had been created with the help of different artists, even if some of the artists did not ask the owner if their contribution would be accepted.But others were really unhappy, especially those who put some political meanings into their works and now they found their work

Moderation

A moderation in order to structure a discussion is important so that everybody has the chance to express their feelings and opinions.

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compromised or negatively commented. For these territory owners these actions had been respectless and mean.Between these two points of opinion everyone was feeling more happy or unhappy with their territories.The discussion about the different behaviour started. Some of the „vandals“ statedg that this would be the way how society was usually acting in real life and and that often there would be nobody to ask for before doing something. Others just felt provoked to comment because of the implications of some political signs.At least some participants did not find the right owner and gave up searching.At this point of the discussion it came up that in spite of basic rules everyone dealt different with them, some felt so provoked by the work of others that much that they insisted on an interrogation. Some participants considered these rules as unpractical and narrowing while others took them serious as a way of respecting respecting the work, thoughts and creativity of each other.At this point the discussion was stopped, It was necessary to change our seminar room because there was another event booked. Anette and Lena wanted to make sure, that the moving of the material was realized without any hurry sothat the second part of the day could started in a relaxed atmosphere after lunch. Some participants asked Lena and Anette to give a theoretical overview about the contents and aspects of diversity pedagogy in order to get more background infomrations abd to get fsmiliar with them. So far everything had been practical and everyone enjoyed trying out all these methods...but some did not feel good enough to use these methods in their work or could not really make up the theoretical background on their own. That

Feedback is helpful

A constant feedback by the participants is very important and precious. It leads to a good orientation for the seminar leaders: what topics should be focused on, what aspects should be deepened? In a long-term seminar like Training Democracy seminar leaders should try to integrate the topic-related demands of the participants.

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is why the second part of the day started with a presentation about diversity pedagogy by Anette.It started with the basic principle of diversity and intercultural pedagogy: This concept is about the respect and acceptance that everyone is unique and different and that this awareness can be achieved through the recognition of everyone´s own uniqueness.

Intercultural learning means celebrating everyone´s own uniqueness and the diversity of individuals - beyond simple tolerance. In the following minutes Anette pointed out some steps of intercultural and diversity learning from the micro field of the interpersonal level to the macro field of cultures and society and also stated out the perspective of doing diversity, including some issues and reasons for doing differences and she introduced the inten-tions of intercutural pedagogy as rai-sing the awareness of many differences existing, their link to power in discrimi-nation in societies, how discrimination can be repro-duced by institutions our ritualized beha-viour in everyday life and how non-discriminating structures and personalities can be build.After this the group was asked how this concept could be transferred into our work in social institutions or everyday life. Most of the participants did not really have a good answer for this. But by thinking about discriminating structures in different

The Problem Of Theoretical Knowledge

It is alway difficult for participants of a seminar to transfer their gained theoretical knowledge into their work and their life. This problem can´t be solved by any seminar leader in the world but only by the participants themselves. But what seminar leaders can do is to give the participants enough space and time to deal with the infomations and to encourage them to use their creativity and individuality to transfer their gained knowledge.

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societies a first step was made to think seriously about dealing with this concept.To visualize this abstract presentation of how society is discriminating minorities or how diversity can be useful and good on the one hand but then abused, Anette showed a little comic presentation .Hereafter the participants were asked to experience diversity – and also discrimination. Looking back, wednesday was a turning point in the seminar. The games, exercises and methods of the first two days were focused to raise awareness of diversity and differences and to get to know each other. From now on the tasks also dealt with negative aspects of diversity – discrimination and stigmata. The following game was called Barnga. The participants already had already been divided into four groups sitting at four tables.On each table a card game was placed and everyone got the rule of the game in written. At each table some rounds had been played in order to be sure that everyone understood the rule of the game. I wasn´t very difficult, it had been a simple game with basic rules to follow.Then everthing had to be removed from the tables - except the cards - and the game started for a few minutes. Nobody was allowed to speak, the game had to be played silently. After some rounds the person who had won the most rounds had to move clockwise to the next table while the weakest player had to move to the next table counterclockwise.Then the next rounds were played. After seconds of playing at different tables people started to laugh, blank faces were made and players started to argue (more or less) silently about their methods of playing and the game rules. The new players at the tables seemed to have a different opinion on how the game should be played but they were

Barnga

Goals: recognition of the complexity of cultural differences, under- standing how cultural differen-

ces can create communication barriers, discovering and dis-

cussing ways to overcome these barriers

Duration: 1-1,5 hours

Material: card games, instructions of rules

Description: The participants play a sim-ple card game in small groups and con-flicts begin to occur when participants move from group to group. This game simulates cross-cultural encounters: the participants initially believe that they all play under the same rules and have the same understanding of the rules. Recognizing that there are different rules the participants have to face a mini-culture-shock. After this shock they have to try and struggle to get to know the new rules. This problem is deepened by the rule that all participants are only allowed to communicate by sign-language. The truth is: at each table the game is played with slightly different rules.

Set-Up: There are different tables on which the card game is played, there should be about 4 people playing per table. On each table copies of the rules for each player have to be handed out on each table (of course only the rules applying to the certain table) plus a deck of cards (with cards from Aces - 10, no face-cards). In the beginning the participants have to play a couple of rounds.Talking is allowed to make sure that everybody understands the rules.

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the outnumbered and due to the lack of speech no discussion about what happened could be realized.At the end of the second session the weakest players had to move on again and mostly these worst players had been the new ones at the tables.After this second session all of the moving players felt confused. They did not know what had happened or what they did wrong, some of the players who came back to their original table felt „home“ again and played a good round, but some of them did not know the right rules to play anymore. And those who had lost both sessions lost again in the third session.After this third session the game stopped and everyone started to shout, laugh and debate. The players at the tables tried to explain each other what had gone wrong, they argued about the rules of the game but did not find a solution of what had happened because there were different opinions of the correct rule.After this short episode of laughter and shouting Lena asked everyone to calm down. She wanted to know what had happened and how the participants felt.Some participants said that in the first round everything had been fine but the new players that had come to the table played the game under wrong rules. But while trying to explain they had been interrupted by others who said that they played right and the others played the game in a wrong way. Again, a discussion started until Lena asked a few participants who had lost a couple of sessions about their feelings during the game. They said they had felt insecure and that they did not understand what had been going on. They questioned the rules they learned but they also could not find out what they had been doing wrong on the new tables. Those who had

After these test rounds everything has to be removed from the table and the game starts again, but this time without talking. After a few rounds the participants have to switch tables - the person who won the most tricks moves clockwise to the next table and the person who lost the most tricks moves counter-clockwise to the next table. The players don´t know that each table got different rules.

After a couple of rounds the participants should be aware that they are playing with different rules. Depending on the game another switch of persons can be made or the group can already move on with a discussion.

Questions:

- If you could describe the game in one word, what would it be?

- What did you expect at the beginning of the game?

- When did you realize that something was wrong?

- How did you deal with the situation?

- Does this game remind you of any situation in real life?

There are different versions of Barnga existing, you can check the internet for further instructions or other versions.

1

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won the first round felt confused because at their first table they had done everything right and at the second table everything suddenly had been wrong. When they came back to their first table the old rules seemed to be right again... After these short reports by the players Lena explained what had happened: Each table had got slightly different rules handed out in the beginning, so when some players had changed the tables after the first round, these „new“ players had been playingunder different rules. For that reason it had been forbidden to speak so that there was no chance to solve this problem immediately and there was no match to clear all misunderstandings only by sign language.After this explanation the mood of all participants improved, there was a feeling of relieve that all these misunderstandings had been part of the game.After this short moment of relaxing and taking breath the situations created by the game were discussed. There had always been a minority who had to deal with unknown rules without having a real chance to get in touch with the majority due to the lack of possibility of good communication.The group came to the conclusion that in society some minorities have similar problems, e.g. migrants, disabled or old people. Even if these people want to take an active part in society they have to face a lot of difficulties. A migrant may have different values than the majority of society so it can be hard for this person to get in touch with society and participate in the same way the majority does. It is likely that migrants or disabled people are not able to speak the language of the majority in a way it is common in a region or country. Sometimes they don´t know the right words, they have problems with the

Time For A Cool Moderation

After such an exciting game a positive and relaxed attitude by the workshop leaders can take out a lot of negative atmosphere of the discussion after such an exciting game. Nevertheless, such a method should not be played in the beginning of a seminar, the participants should know each other before playing games like Barnga because these games can be a torture and a desaster for the "group-feeling".

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pronounciation or they just feel too insecure to use their potential of communication skills. Old people often are not that mobile anymore or are able to catch up with the changes in modern society, so they are also depending on the help of others.More or less the game Barnga was meant to demonstrate how minorites might feel if they don´t they stand a chance or believe that they don´t have a chance to get to know the rules of society´s organization by formal and informal rules.There is a relation between the power of an individual in society (as it was shown in the game “Power Flower”) and their chances to participate actively in society.The day of activities ended with this emotio-nally exciting game.After lunch the group went to the center of Bremen once again because of a guided tour through the city center. This guided tour had the focus on democracy and history of Bremen.It was the same procedure as Monday before: the group got to the city with a car from LidiceHaus. This tour had to be made several times to bring all members to the meeting point. I got there by bike and contacted our city guide. The guide was a professor for history at the University of Bremen and had also studied English so she was perfect for our little tour. The tour started at the old market place and the guide told about the historical buildings arounding that place. There was the Dome, the city hall and the Bürgerschaft (the political parliament of Bremen). This was a good place to start hearing about the history of Bremen and the history of democracy in Bremen. The guide told the group about the history of the Dome, some anecdotes about early basic democracy, the time after the First World War when the government was based on councils and the

Cooling Down

It is a good idea to put such an intense method at the end of a seminar day: The lenght of the discussion can be organzied flexibly, depending on the need of the participants to discuss their im-pressions. Furthermore the partici-pants are not forced to calm down again because they have enough time to handle the caused excite-ment.

A Guided City-Tour?!A guided city-tour may seem to be a standard touristic way of exploring a city... But sometimes there are a couple of good companies that offer indivi-dual and alternative tours which can establish a relationship to the topic of a seminar. Often the partici-pants who are living in the town where the seminar is held do not want to show the touristic parts of the city or even do not know much about them. That is why it is a nice idea to organize in advance a good guided tour to show the participants the touristic side of a town.

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modern design of the Bürgerschaft which should implicate the transparency of a criteria of modern good politics. After that the tour was continued towards the old city fortifications where the guide was telling about the history of the city ridge. Later the group got into the Schnoor district, the old part of the city center where the tour finally ended. After this very informative and exciting tour the rest of the evening was for free use. But there was one thing to discuss before the participants split ways to get something to drink or to return to LidiceHaus: During lunch some participants asked if it would be possible to spend Thursday in Hamburg. For some participants this would be a rare possibility to see some more parts of Germany. Me and some of the other German participants offered to guide the group through Hamburg and after some minutes of thinking Anette and Lena decided that it is possible to split up the group so everyone could decide whether to go to Hamburg or to deepen the work on diversity pedagogy. This day off would not be a big loss of time because on the schedule the afternoon was marked as free time anyway.So after having cleared this we split up. One participant wanted to meet a friend who was working in Bremen and a group decided to go with him to a cafe where he could meet his friend and the others could hang out. I joined this group and we had some nice talks about cigarettes and their prices in different countries as well as about the history of Bremen and our different ways of living.

Use the Knowledge of Participants!

Participants who have specific knowledge and who are able to offer or support group ideas based on the interests of all participants can be a gift for the seminar. When there is some time left in the seminar schedule, a realization of these offers and ideas can be a good way to make a workshop more interesting.

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Day 4 (Thursday, 16.6.2011)

After breakfast my group headed to the central train station. I left LidiceHaus a little bit earlier and went by bike to the train station in order to buy the tickets in advance to make sure we wouldn´t have to race or even miss the train.On the train I had the chance to talk to some of the turkish participants because all of them attended to this trip to Hamburg. We talked about the living situation in Istanbul, women rights and our personal plans for the future. Fortunately the weather was fine when we arrived in Hamburg and after we gathered again I or-ganized some city maps for all us to make sure that nobody of us would get lost. So, what to do? After a quick Flashlight it came out that most of the group wanted to see parts of the inner city or just stroll around, while others wanted to go to St. Pauli and see the famous Reeperbahn.So we decided to go to the Binnenalster and then to the Sternschanze. On our way there were a lot of good occasionsto take pictures and to enjoy the relaxing day. We also passed the Gängeviertel. One of the participants asked: „Here are poor people living, right?“This was an interesting question. So far Germany had been seen as a country with great living conditions and a well working society by the participants,especially by some of the turkish participants.

City Maps!

When you are travelling in a larger group of people with different interests in a city which is unknown for most of them it is important to organize some city maps for free. Normally you can find them at tourist informations.

Flashlight

Goals: making a decision

Duration: 2 min.

Materials: none

Description: All members of a group have to tell the group how they feel and what they want to do next in 2-3 sentences. It is important that all members get the chance to state out their position and feelings and that no one is judging them. When everybody had told the group their position, a decision based on the statements will be made.

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The Gängeviertel is a squatted quarter next to several business buildings in an expensive part of Hamburgs city center. Squatted in August 2009, this quarter has become a symbol of a well working protest against the gentrification of districts, streets or even whole cities. Gentrification is a term for the process of an increasing of value of flats and houses in a district due to a raising attractiveness of the surrounding of a building. This process can be directed e.g. by building new upper class buildings, new and richer residents of the flats or buildings or better infrastructure.This may sound good in the beginning (especially when you see all these fancy new buildings), but there are also negative consequences: These changes are influencing the life of everybody who is living in the concerned buildings or districts: rents are getting higher and higher, the social environment is changing, old shops may close and new ones may open. For some old residents both changes – financial and social – could force them to move out and find a new place. Finding a new place in Hamburg can be really difficulty, especially when you want to live in the center: Hamburg is one of the most expensive german cities in respect of rental fees.This was the first time we dealt with negative aspects of diversity in German society in this seminar.The German parti-cipants explained the others that in the Gängeviertel people are living because they want to protect the buildings and want to use them for their crea-tive works and to make sure that there

Excursion-Time

An informative excursion like this city trip can be a link between the theoretical parts of a seminar and everyday life. It can also strenghten the "group-feeling". Nevertheless, such kind of trips are more efficient when they are optional and all of the travelling group are motivated for this little trip.

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are still some places left in the heart of the city - for people who are not wealthy in financial or well trained way.After that we headed towards the Sternschanze, had a look at the Millerntor, the stadium of thefamous soccer team FC St. Pauli, had a drink in a cafe and walked down the Sternschanze. The Sternschanze is a district in Hamburg which once had been a a place for alternative people and subculture but now it is one of the symbols of gentrification in Hamburg. But there are still some places which can be considered as part of a counter movement like the Rote Flora, a building where left winged-political groups have their meetings, where concerts and workshops are realized and alternative ways of living are still possible.After showing these two sides of social reality in Hamburg we finally went to St. Pauli and the Reeperbahn.Then we took the metro back to the central station and drove back to Bremen.While we had been in Hamburg dealing with gentrification taking photos and other stuff the other part of the participants spend the day with a hard exercise:The group had been divided into two smaller groups and both of these groups got a scenario of conflict they had to solve somehow. In the first case the group had to imagine that they were a teacher who had the permission to allow the youth of school to design and realize a graffiti on a school wall. In the end this graffiti turned out to criticize school and it was anti-religious so that the school director wanted it to be removed while the youth was angry and wanted the teacher to stick to the promise.In the second case the other group had to imagine they were a counsellor of social services in a municipality. One day a family from pakistan came to the counsellor asking

Betzavta Cases

Goals: dealing with conflicting interests, making aware of chances and problems of diversity

Duration: 1 hour

Description: The participants are divided into groups. Each group gets a different case/conflict to discuss. After some time the whole group gathers again and all cases and "solutions" are presented by the several small groups. After each presen-tation there is a short discussion of the case in the whole group.The two groups in Training Democrcy had the following cases to discuss:

Case 1

Freedom of expression

You are a teacher in a school:On behalf of a project young people are invited to create a graffiti on the wall. Regarding to your (and other colleagues) suggestion the young people can decide about the graffiti – and you did not ask in advance about the content of the painting.The graffiti shows horrible caricatures: the headmaster is shown as an monster, religious figures as pigs etc. – and above is written ‘Here is no future’! The principle of the school demands you to erase immediately this graffiti! The young people are angry and ask you to ‘stick’ to your promise. What is your decision?

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for help. The Home Secretary decided to get them back to Pakistan but the family refused. The counsellor knew that they would be in danger if they went back to Pakistan.So the counsellor tried to help them but he _she failed and had to make sure, that the family would be taken to the airport.Both groups had to make up their minds about their case and present them to open up a discussion.

Especially the second case was hard to discuss, because there was no good way out of the conflict which led them to one of the biggest unsolved problems in the modern states: the difference between refugees and citizens. This conflict remained unsolved and in the afternoon the participants who stayed at LidiceHaus were still talking and making up their minds about this conflict.This was the way we spent the rest of the evening: Reporting each other in an informal way what everybody had ex-perienced today.

Case 2

The Refugee

You are working as a counsellor in the Social Services of a municipality.One day a family with 2 kids asks you for an urgent help: They are refugees from Pakistan with an ‘interim status’ – which means that they have only a ‘permission to stay for 6 months. Now the 6 months have passed and the ministry of the interior decided that they have to return back to Pakistan. The family is in fear and refuses to accept this decision.You have got to know about other cases and by own researches that they might face danger after their return to Pakistan. You try to help them in order to extend the permission – it fails. You get the order to make sure that the family is prepared to be taken to the airport with all its stuff.

What is your decision?

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Day 5 (Friday, 17.6.11)

Friday started off with a mid-term evaluation of our seminar. On wednesday working with diversity pedagogy had ended and before starting with Betzavta and its methods it was a good moment to reflect the feelings about the first half of the seminar... Well, you may have noticed that we had already past the mid-term (which had been on wednesday)...but because of the day off on Thursday and the end of exploring the methods of diversity pedagogy Friday morning certainly was the best time to do an evaluation.

This evaluation was done in an an o n y m o u s but visual way: Anette and Lena pinned a piece of paper on a cardboard. On this paper was a big circle which was divided into five segments: „house,

accommodation, surrounding, freetime“;„organization and moderation“; „programme“; „group feeling“ and „How did we achieve the goals so far?“. Now every participant got five stickers, one sticker for each segment. The task now was to put one sticker for each segment, the closer the sticker was put towards the middle of the circle the happier the participant was with the aspects regarding the segment.Now everyone got time to think and then had to point the stickers. The résumé had been mostly positive, the most negative aspect had been about the achievement of

Midterm Evaluation: Target Zone

Goals: evaluation of the first half of the seminar, discussing its positive and negative aspects

Duration: 30 min.

Material: flipchart papers,wall, pen, stickers

Description: The seminar leader has prepared a paper with a painted on target zone. It is divided into different categories.

In this case the categories are:

1.) house, accommodation, surrounding, freetime2.) organization and moderation3.) programme4.) group feeling5.) How did we achieve the goals so far?

Now each participant gets as many as stickers as categories and and is asked to put a sticker in each category. The closer a sticker is put towards the center of the target zone, the more positive the participant feels regarding this category. It is important that the seminar leader leaves the room during this process so that the participants are able to give an anony-mous feedback.When everybody has put the sticker in every category the seminar leader sum-marizes the outcomes. Thid is also a possibility for a personal feedback: Both participants and seminar leader can raise their voices to name positive and negative aspects of the seminar.

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aims. This was not surprising, the seminar was behind schedule and even though the days were always packed from morning to evening, there was the feeling that only the top of an iceberg called diversity only had been scratched so far and now there were only 3 days left to deal with Betzavta and the final evaluation.This was also the main point brought up in the discussion and résumé about the poster. Another point was the question how to use the gained knowledge in our work. This critic could be considered as one of the most common negative point about seminars: they are always about theory and are far away from everyday life. In the end it is up to the participants to integrate their gained knowledge into their work and life.Some of the attending participants had slightly different expectations in respect of the content, they had expected some more practical advices for the solutions of their social and political problems in their everyday life. But in my opinion these problems or critiques are normal and common on seminars and it is really hard to minimize or even erase them.The impressions on "accomodation, food, etc." and "organization and moderation" were very positive, the atmosphere of the seminar gave a positive impression to the participants and Lena and Anette were complimented for their style of moderation. The next task was the first Betzavta exercise for the whole group and it sounded really simple: Everyone got several blank-cards and should write down at least one rule. After having put down these rules in writing, the whole group had to find one rule they would follow all until the end of the day.After writing down the rules the big negotiation began: people gathered, some debating groups were built and others tried

An honest feedback

An anonymous evaluation is good because it takes off the pressure of the feedback. The participants can be honest and don´t have to fear a personal and direct negative reaction of the workshop-leaders because of a possible negative feedback.

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to call everyones attention by running around presenting their rules to get as many votes as possible for it.There had been various types of behaviour in this exercise: some just stood in their national group and discussed their ideas, others remained silent just walking around and the rest was trying to call the attention of all participants, either to get as many votes as possible for their rules or to create a system get everybody heard and to find a quick solution for finding the most accepted rule.Finally were 2-3 bigger groups debating with more or less one person who got by far the most votes in their group. At the end of this discussion there was one rule with the most votes: „No rules!“. The group accepted this rule because it got the most votes.

Afterwards the process of finding out the rule was discussed and reflected. As already described the way of coming to a decision had not been achieved in the whole group but by dividing it into smaller groups who gathered around spokesmen. Then Lena and Anette asked if everyone felt heard with their suggestions of a rule. Some participants responded that they had some suggestions and pronounced them, but nobody listened to them. Other participants tried to make some suggestions how to arrange a fair process of finding a rule but they remained unheard, too. Both of that two groups then decided that it would be

How To Find A Rule For A Day

Goals: dealing with decision making and its complexity

Duration: 30 min.

Material: paper cards, pens

Description: The group gets a simple task: they have to find a rule that everybody has to follow until the end of the day. Therefore they get some paper cards and a pen to write down several rules. The participants have 20 minutes to find a rule. After having found it the group gathers again and discusses the ways of finding the rule.

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best to take part in an existing group, which made these groups bigger and their spokesmen got more important. It was suggested to be more democratic to hear all proposals and to sort out the most popular for further discussion. By this task the participants realized again how difficult real democratic processes are and how many efforts all participants have to put in this process to make it work.In the following all participants got another piece of paper. This paper was headed: „What are my rights????“Under this headline was written:

What can I expect from:

my family

my friends

my colleagues

my community

my society

my state

Anette explained the task to write down in keynotes what you are expecting from these different institutions in your society.To me this task was difficult to answer because it leaves out on what these expectations are based on (eg. our values and traditions).But eventually everyone found some keynotes to each point. After 15 minutes the participants were divided into 5 groups and discussed their sheets in these groups. In comparison the points of expectations of friends and colleagues had been quite the same. But depending on state, the family and society there had been various different

What are my rights?

Goals: reflecting the own rights and values in society and comparing them to those of other cultures

Duration: 25 min.

Material: prepared printed-on papers, pens

Description: The participants get a paper on which different institutions of society are named. The task of every participant is to consider what can be expected of these institutions on a personal level. At Training Democracy the following institutions were discussed:

- my family

-my friends

-my colleagues

- my community

- my society

- my state

Dependig on the group and the seminar other institutions can be discussed as well.When all have finished they buildsmall groups and compare their sheets. The team leader can either gather the whole group or go into the small groups to help to start a discussion about the different opinions and the reasons for these differences.

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opinions. Regarding to the role of family and individualism in the different societies, there were different expectations. People who still had a strong relation to their family expected a lot more of their own family members than other ones who moved out from home and away from their family quite early in their lifes. There really had been country-specific differences in the tendencies of the answers referring to the different life-styles, values and traditions in the different countries.It really was a nice idea to bring everyone to tell their expectations from different insti-tutions in their life to others.

After this task there was a little coffee break. Then another game with the focus on team work was played.This game had the fantastic name „Chocolate Game“. This game was both an adaption of real life in society and parlour game. For this the ground of the seminar room was covered with 30 small square fields of paper numbered from 1 to 30. They had been placed in the room like on a gamefield of Monopoly-playground.Then all had to sit down in a circle and Lena and Anette explained the rules of the game. Again the group was divided this time by counting from 1-3. The first person said "one", the second said "two" and the third said "three". It started with "one" again and so on. Like this, we got three teams: All

Mixed Methods

A workshop gets more ex-citing by using a mixture of methods with elements of teamwork, working in coup-les or by oneself.

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“Ones”, all “Twos” and all “Threes” built one group.One member of each team had to be the playing figure, luckily every group found their playing figure quite quickly. Then they had to give itself a group name.A bloc of chocolate was placed on the fields 10, 20 and 30 (which also had been the finish line or the goal) which could be picked up by the playing figures. But first, there had to be set up the starting points. These starting points were defined by throwing a dice from each group. The group with the highest eyes started from field 8, the group with the second highest eyes started from field 3 and the last group had to start from field 0. The group which started from field 8 also started the game by rolling the dice to decide how many fields the playing figure was allowed to pass. After the first rolling of the dice the first group already passed field 10. After passing field 10 the leading group picked up the chocolate for their group and defined a rule for the game. They defined the rule that all playing figures had to stand on one foot all the time.If a figure broke this rule it would have to go back to field 0. From now on each group was looking if the playing figures of the other groups were breaking this rule. The players were supporting their groups by shouting and motivating their playing figures, at the same time they were trying to provoke the other teams. Later in the game it happened: the leading group had to start over again, because their playing figure touched the ground. The other groups were happy about this incident and another group got the second chocolate at field 20. This group decided that the playing figures had to imitate animal noises. This made this rest of the game less competitive and more funny. In the end the group which had to start all over again won due to a series of diced sixes, which allowed them to dice again and again. In the end the chocolate was split up under

The Chocolate Game

Goals: creating awareness of processes of group-building and its con- sequences for the perception of related and non-related groups

Duration: 1 hour

Material: playing fields, chocolate (or other sweets), big dice

Description: The seminar leader needs to prepare a playing field. Then the group is divided randomly into 3-4 teams. These teams have to give themselves a group name and to find a human playing figure. The seminar leader puts chocolate bars on several playing fields. The first team which passes a playing field with a sweet on it can define a rule in the game. Before starting the game, all groups have to roll the dice to define their starting place. In Training Democracy the group with highest number starts from field 8, the group with the second highest number starts from field 3 and the last group started from place 0. The group with the highest number begins, then it continues clockwise. When a group rolls a 6, the group is allowed to roll the dice again. The game is finished when the first group enters the goal. The winning group gets a present.

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each group so nobody had to starve or to be sad.Reflecting this game the behaviour of the three groups during the game was discussed: In the middle of the game one group was offering their chocolate to the other groups because they did not want to have it but the others groups refused the offer. After the setting of the first rule some argued that as a result of the game bfore there wouldn´t be no more rules to follow. Nevertheless everybody accepted the rules of the game and continued. The groups even tried to make sure that all the other groups were not breaking any rules because they wanted to win the game.

And even though all g r o u p s agreed to have a rule they all had broken it, maybe in order to have a chance to win and/or to have fun in this game. But in a way all groups accepted the

old authority by Lena and Anette very fast.When a group offered the chocolate to the other groups they refused it because they did not get it on their own. During the game the groups built their own identity and their own way of supporting their playing figure by creating special shouts and an own name. This was not only to increase their own motivation but also to distinguish themselves from the other groups.This game was a simple competition and

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everybody accepted this competition without hesitating. But this competition stopped by the end of the game and everyone felt that this game gave them a good time.Then the participants had only a short lunch break because everyone had to prepare the next method: The World Café.This method was one of the biggest and most important methods of the seminar because it was transforming theoretical conclusions and ideas onto a more practical level. The world cafe is a structured dialogue with people from different parts of society which are debating for a short time on one certain topic, after some minutes the topic and the formation of the debating persons is changed and everybody is in a new discussion.For this exercise Anette, Lena and others prepared five different topics:

1) How should be the relationship between state and religion in a democratic society?

2) Which should be (legal) rights that minorities have in a democracy?

3) How can political and social participation of youth be achieved in a democracy?

4) Can democracy be achieved with violence?

5) Are we really ready for democracy?

Each question had been put on abig table which was covered with a large blanket of paper. This blanket should be used to write down important personal ideas or aspects regarding the asked question on that table. At each table there was one observer/reporter who also wrote down important aspects of each discussion. So what was so

The World Café

Goals: creating a dialogue with persons and decision-makers from different parts of society

Duration: 2-3 hours

Material: tables covered with paper, cards with questions, pens

Description: This method needs a lot of preparation in advance. The team leader invites different persons from the fields of politics, social work or other parts of society with different social backgrounds and (cultural) heritages who want to take part in this cafe.A well-balanced group is really important for this method, therefore the preparation has to be done properly.The tables of the café are covered in paper. A paper with the question that has to be discussed is placed in the middle of the table. Pens and additional paper are lying on each table too in order to make notes or statements regarding question to be discussed.All participants have to visit eonce each table. Each discussion-round lasts 15 minutes. One person has to remain all the time at the table in order to collect all important statements. All participants have to take care that they are not sitting together with the same persons all the time.At the end a short summary has to be made.Here you can find a description of the world cafe by Lena online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihf-LrqKGHU&list=UUWTcnFh_VEnIm3RojmOD1RQ&index=8&feature=plcp

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special about this method? In advance Lena and Anette had been skimming their address books and they had asked different local politicians, social workers, members of different culture and social associations or institutions, pupils and other interested people to join this world cafe. The aim was to create a big group a people with different backgrounds and power in society, who could take part in this structured dialogue and have one of the rare chances to speak face to face about their opinions on the same level. In the end we had 12 guests most of them local politicians or people related to social work who took part in this dialogue together with the participants of the seminar.

When everybody arrived and got acclimated, there was a short introduction and a welcome to all guests, including a little warm-up. Then the rules were explained: On every topic there were 15 minutes time of discussion on each topic. Each person had to visit each table once and everybody had to make sure that there will not be some persons sitting together at the same table.The discussions had been really lively and vivid, often the guests just listened to the views and opinions of the participants (which is really uncommon,especially for politicians), nobody was arguing but there still was an exchange ofdifferent opinions. It was evident that it was a new experience for some of the guests to

At Training Democracy the following questions have been discussed at world cafe:

- How should be the relationship of state and religion in a democratic society?

- Which should be (legal) rights of minorities in a democracy?

- How can be achieved political and social participation of youth in a democracy?

- Can democracy be achieved with violence?

- Are we really ready for democracy?

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deal with the situation of young people in e.g. Palestine. This world cafe gave them some new perspectives of the living circumstances of young people outside of Germany. On the other hand for some of the young participants this had been the first time they dealt with politicians face to face. It was uncommon for them that they had a platform to get in direct touch with politicians.The world cafe method made it possible to get outside the seminar-box for 90 minutes and to see how diversity and Betzavta can be realized and evolved in a 15 minutes structured-dialogue.It turned out that there were quite different opinions, e.g. about how a democratic society could evolve, how important political and social institutions were for participating in a society and how religion could could or should be a part in everyday politics. This might have been the shortest 90 minutes of the whole seminar and some participants had been quite unhappy that there only had been 15 minutes to talk at each table. But in the end this dialogue should be seen as a start of taking part in a wider dialogue and another possibility to get a feeling for taking action and to be an active part of society.These impressions had been the main points presented by the participants in the discussion round afterwards. The guests stated out that they were impressed by all these different thoughts and perspectives of the presented topics.The discussion did not stop and so there were still debates at the buffet afterwards. The buffet was arranged to make it easier to continue with exchanges and discussions.For the short time given to realize this dialogue the result was really positive and seemed to widen the horizons of all persons had had taken part in this method.

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While debating at the table on how youth participation could be realized it suddenly came into my mind that in the youth house Buchte only white kids from the center districts of the city are active and nearly nobody with migration background is taking an active part in the house. As well there are no signs of a widened cultural diversity and nearly all stickers have a mainly left-wing-white-middle background transmitting codes and statements who only can be understood by by persons who have the same political and/or cultural background. For the first time ever I felt the need to make a change and to open somehow the house for other young peolple who may not see youth houses and left wing politics as a main benchmark in their everyday life and socialization.I am sure that some of the participants had similar ideas and this can be seen as a really good outcome of this method. The buffet was a smooth way of ending the day, there had been no further program points and until all discussions ended it was late evening.

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Day 6 (Saturday, 18.6.2011)

Well, Saturday was the last day with full programme and when everyone entered the seminar room some people realized that this seminar was coming to an end. There were some sad faces, but of course everyone was also excited to hid back home.This morning Anette and Lena presented last method of Betzavta in the seminar. This game was called „Three Volunteers“ and there surely was a reason why this game was placed at the end of the seminar...

Of course we had some warm-up before like we had every day, but this morning it seemed as if all spent some more time to start into the day. After all there was thetask: find three volunteers, who should leave the room for a couple of minutes without knowing what will wait for them when they are allowed to enter the room again. These three volunteers were found easily...maybe because none of them really knew with what they would be involved.After the three persons had left the room, the rest of the group got their task: They had to create own rules of behaviour and own codes of speaking and expressing. The group also had to find a topic for a discussion because the group should be discussing while one of the volunteers after the other was allowed to enter the room again.

Three Volunteers

Goals: creating awareness of processes of group-building and its con- sequences for the perception of related and non-related groups, recognition of the complexity of cultural differences, understanding how cultural differences can create communication barriers, discovering and discussing ways to overcome communi- cation barriers

Duration: 1 hour

Material: none

Description: The participants have to find three volunteers to leave the group for 15 minutes. When these volunteers have left the room, the rest of the group has to find different rules of behaviour and punisments for misbehaving. Then the first volunteers comes back and the group is just sitting around and talking. After five minutes the second volunteer comes in and joins the group and another five minutes later the last volunteer enters the group again. After a while the method is stopped and the team leader asks the volunteers how they have felt and how they have be-haved. Then the team leader asks the rest of the group about their behaviour. In the process of reflection the team leader has to find out if the volunteers felt pressure to integrate and how they have reacted when they found out that they suddenly belong to a minority and if they have arranged themselves as a little group on their own.

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The rules were as followed: The topic of the discussion was a fictive talk about the three volunteers who had left the room. But to make sure that they wouldn´t find out the topic of the discussion, the group just used another noun with the same starting letter instead of the name of the person which was to be discussed. Another rule was that all people had to cross their legs and who didn´t follow this rule would be punished by shaking heads and making snakelike noises towards the regarded person. If someone in the group wanted to speak, they were only allowed when they opened their legs before. This was also a sign for the rest of the group that somebody wanted to say something. All persons who didn´t follow this rule were ignored and interrupted by the snakelike noises. After making up these rules the first volunteer was asked to enter the room. Right after sitting down this person was punished with snakelike noises because he didn´t cross his legs.Then the talking started. The volunteer remained silent and was only observing and started some „test balloons“ which all failed and were punished. The volunteer realised that it was not easy to understand what was going on and mostly remained passive, but sometimes he also commented the subject of the discussion which definitively seemed obscure from the outside. After five minutes the second person came in and was punished in the same way as the first volunteer after sitting down. This volunteer was more emotional about the situation, while the first volunteer helped the second one by reporting the gained knowledge. But when this report started, the snakelike noises got louder because for the rest of the group this had been one of the biggest violations of the existing laws. The second volunteer was commenting the subject of the discussion more than the first one. The

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discussion was becoming meaner and more creative, most of the group seemed to identify themselves with their rules which made it even harder for the volunteers to try to get involved. In the end of the second part of the game the first volunteer had gained some useful knowledge because he had been able to observe how the group was treating the second volunteer. So the first volunteer was helping the second one whereas the second volunteer was getting into a stage of denial towards the group because she thought that the behaviour of the majority was ridiculous. Another 5 minutes later the last volunteer entered the room and was informed right away about the situation by the other two volunteers. Now they were building up their own group to hold and keep together while the majority tried to interrupt them. This way of conflict was going on for another 5 minutes until the game was ended by Anette and Lena.This game had really heat up the emotions. Even though the faces of all persons of the majority were clearing up again, the three volunteers were not able to come down and relax. So it was important to start with the reflection of the game right afterwards and, of course, the volunteers had the first chances to speak and to share their experiences.At first, the first volunteer was asked how he felt when he entered the room.He answered that he had stood passive on purpose because he had found out soon that the activity of the majority had been focused on him. He said that he had tried different tactics and different actions just to see how the group was reacting. But he also stated out that he had been quite relaxed during this method because it had been clear that all this was just a game.Then Lena asked him if he had changed his

Take Care Of The Group-Feeling!

Like Barnga, this method should be played when the group is solid and all participants have a good feelings towards each other. "Three Volunteers" is really testing the ability of separating a game from reality. Nevertheless, of games like this a negative atmosphere can evolve. That is why it is so impor-tant to have enough time for the dis-cussion of the method.

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behaviour when the second volunteer had joined the group. The first volunteer answered that he had tried to tell the second one about his observations and conclusions and to calm her down.In fact they had supported each other and focused on working together to find out how to deal with the situation in the best way.Then Anette asked the other two volunteers how they felt.Both of them had felt really unpleasant and unwelcome, even though this method had been just a game. After some time the volunteers had discovered nearly all rules of behaviour which had been set by the majority, but even then they only had arranged themselves more or less in their situation as outsiders. They really had felt like strangers and had not been able to get acquainted with the majority.Then the majority was asked how they felt and how they acted.The result was that the majority had been very creative in using their self-made rules which had made the game funny for those belonged to the majority. Nearly everyone of them had laughed a lot during the game, especially because of the very creative use of the finding another noun-rule. All persons of the majority had seemed to form a solid group with rules followed by all of the members.In the second part of the reflection the minority was asked if they had felt pressure in order to integrate into the group and how the majority had treated them.The three volunteers replied that on one hand they had wanted to be part of the big group again andthat it had been a hard and shocking experience to be excluded in a cruel way of no respect by the majority due to that lack of knowledge. They had felt like outsiders only because of some unwritten

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rules which they could not had known. The majority was treating them like less worthy persons just because of their different behaviour. All three of them wished never to get into a similar situation again and also wished for the others never to have this experience in reality.Then the majority was asked how they had behaved in front of the minority and why they had done in that way.How had the majority reacted on the situation?Nobody had given the volunteers a short introduction into the rules of behaviour, nobody had helped them to integrate.In the opinion of the majority the minority had tried to take part in the discussion but was not following the rules of behaviour and communication. That was why they had been punished by the group. The first volunteer just had remained passivemost of the time but he got more active when the second volunteer came in. He tried to help the second volunteer to get acquainted. When the minority had grown up to two persons, they had felt more comfortable in communicating one below the other - and in „breaking laws“. This development got even stronger when the third volunteer joined the group. At that moment the minority started to criticise actively the existing structures and even started to refuse them.The last question of Anette and Lena was directed to all participants of the game. Everyone had to make up their mind about some examples in society and everyday life, which could be compared with the situation created in the method. Similar to the Barnga-cardgame, the conflict in the game evolved because of a clash of different values, different behaviour and a lack of communication between majority and minority.

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But this time the relationship between majority and minority had been more dynamic and complex because there had been more direct possibilities to deal with the conflict. In this game the minority had the chance to interact and talk to the majority, but still both groups had a different set of values and rules of communication. The rules and values of the majority had been unwritten but incorporated laws, which had not been questioned by anyone of the majority. By neglecting these rules and values the minority had turned into personae non gratae and therefore the minority had started to interact only one below the other.In society these developments can be found in different ways. The participants named some minorities in their societies, who had built up their own living structures, who had their own language and their own territory. But none of the volunteers really felt that they belonged to a minority in their own society.All participants thought about the way how a majority is dealing with minorities and the other way round and the question rose if there miht be a lack of communication between these groups in society.This game really took a long time and it was definitively the game which had caused the most excitement in the group. That was why a break was made, even shortly before lunch. Both blocks of methods had ended by now and in the afternoon all of the group would immerge into their lifes at their home-places.But to clear up all minds, Anette had a special warm up after lunch for everyone: a meditation. This meditation a sort of dream travelling, focused on everyones own imagination.In my opinion, this was a really good idea to prepare the participants for the next and

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last step of our seminar: how to integrate the gained knowledge into (social) work.This method was called "Bazar of Democracy", for this method the partici-pants had to get back into their national/project groups. The first task was to draw a picture and a little presentation of how the project or the organisation of the group was looking like at the moment. After this the groups had to make up their minds about several ideas and wishes and maybe even plans to realize in projects or the organization. Hereafter all had to give a short presentation of the current status in the projects and some ideas for the future.For this task there was plenty of time, the presentation of the different projects was the last task of the seminar. So this task was really open space and every group could decide where to go and how to realize the task.

All groups found a little nice place in LidiceHaus to contemplate and to work. It was fine to work within the project-group again. All participants made their own experiences over the last few days and now they were able to use these experiences for new ideas in respect of their projects.Most of the groups draw a metaphorical picture of their project/organization, pointing out the potential of it. Some draw a flower whichwas watered constantly, one of the groups draw a rising sun and another group draw a bike that had to be fixed. All

Bazar Of Democracy

Goals: connecting gained theoretical knowledge into everyday work, getting to know the projects of the participants and their aims

Duration: 1,5 - 2 hours

Material: flipchart paper, crayons

Description: The participants have to gather in their national/project groups and to draw a picture of the current status of their organization/project. Then the groups have to consider their ideas, wishes and plans to improve the organization/project in the future. Therefore the groups sget as much time as they need . Then the whole group has to gather again and each national group/project group presents their poster and current status of their organization/project as well as the ideas and wishes for the organization/project for the future.

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participants seemed to be really happy with their projects and the ideas and ideals behind it.Other ideas for the various project were different: While some project-groups focused on bringing more diversity into their projects by new offers and events for a new target audience, others focused on general ideas to keep their projects going. So it was good that in the end every group presented their project and their ideas for the future. On one hand all participants could see once again how the others are involved in projects and on the other hand it enabled to see the ideas of the others how to realize ideas and ideals.With this last task the introduction in the methods of diversity pedagogy and Betzavta ended.

For this last day of programme a member of the german group had a special idea: She offered to go to a vaudeville show with everyone who was interested. The entrance fee of the vaudeville show was by donation, so it was a low cost show for everyone who did not have much money left. This show was an excellent closure of the method part of Training Democracy because it showed a new part of Bremen and introduced the participants into cultural events in Bremen which were meant for people who are not able to pay a

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high entrance fee for theatre, music and similar stuff.After the show there were some people who wanted to go to a party. Fortunately we were in a part of Bremen where some good parties with electronic music can be found easily and in the end we went to a party at a squatted place next to the place where the vaudeville show had taken place. This party was with free entrance, too and it was a good to show some subcultural living and partying in Bremen.

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Day 7 (Sunday, 19.6.2011)

So, that´s it. The last day. Well at least for me it was the last day because I had to leave Bremen to be back in time to university in Kiel on Monday. All other participants had one more day before leaving LidiceHaus and returning to their everyday life.This Sunday was reserved for saying goodbye, exchanging contact details and a big reflection of the seminar.Programme was only until lunch and in the evening the group was invitedto a farewell- dinner in a restaurant.Because of yesterday´s party it was hard to get out of bed for some of us and I really was afraid to miss breakfast. But when I arrived at the canteen most of the group had just started eating. Everything was relaxed that day.

We started our reflection round by handing some material: everyone had to take some blue cards, some yellow cards, a little plastic bag and some sweets.Everyone had to write down what they hadliked and learned last week on the yellow cards. The negative issues had to be written on the blue cards as well as missing items.Now everyone was free to say aloud what they menat to be positive and negative on the seminar.The feedback had not much changed within the past days: it was mainly positive and

Bye! :-(After a long-term seminar one day for saying goodbye and a final reflection is a nice gift to the group , by that everybody has enough time to say goodbye to each other and to make future plans for further meetings.

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there were only a few negative points regarding the fact that some participants had had other expectations on this seminar, such as more practical instructions or ideas for their social work at home.The positive points had been the city and the LidiceHaus being a good place for accomodation and workshops, the team spirit and the gained knowledge about Betzavta and diversity pedagogy by trying out different methods of these two models in a new and diverse group. Then all had to put put the cards with the positive statements into the bag, to fill it with sweets and to close it.

Lena explained that this bag will be a personal souvenir of this seminar. The cards with the negative statements had to be thrown away in a small bin in the middle of the room.It ws the idea to keep in mind the positive statements of the seminar and to forget the negative aspects.In the second part of the reflection the group had to go through the cardboard with all the expectations and fears made in the beginning of the seminar.Two volunteers of the group presented all the cards again and it came out that nearly all expectations were fulfilled and all fears did not come true.After the reflection part it was up to everyone to say some final words. Anette and Lena thanked for being reallykind and engaged participants and the group

Final Evaluation

Goals: resuming the seminar, making up the minds about the gained knowledge and the positive as- pects of the seminar

Duration: 1 hour

Material: plastic bags, pens, paper cards (in two different colours), sweets, bin

Description: Each participant gets a plastic bag, some sweets, a pen and paper cards in two different colours. On the paper cards the participants have to write down their personal positive and negative aspects of the seminar. One colour is for the postive aspects and the other is for the negative aspects of the seminar. The negative cards shave to be thrown in the bin in order to symbolize that the participants leave them behind. The positive cards are put into the plastic bag together with some sweets. These plastic bags are applied to be a souvenir of the seminar to keep in mind the good aspects of it.After this one or two participants go through the wall of expectations and fears of the first day and decide together with the group if the expectations and fears came true.

Achievements

A final evaluation which reflects the expectations of the beginning of the seminar by comparing them with the outcomes of the seminar. This is one of the best ways to find out if the aims of the seminar have been achieved or not.

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thanked Anette and Lena for the good organisation and the goodtime everyone had. Then the group started to clean up the seminar room and all went to lunch. After lunch they continued tidying and cleaning up and when all had finished somefinal seminar-goodbye-pictures were taken because I had to leave to catch my train to Kiel.When I was sitting in the train I felt both: happy and sad. Happy because of the great time I spent in Bremen as part ofwith a great group. There had been some unforgettable moments and we had learned a lot about each other and our different cultural backgrounds. Some friendships had started and first plans for reunions had been made.And I was sad because now this time was done and gone and I had to return to university and left some old and new friends. But after all I was really happy about the gained knowledge, especially that kind of specific knowledge that can only be achieved by getting in touch with different people and different lifestyles. By this seminar I was enabled to get an insight into the way of life of some countries I hadn´t yet visited. As well I got to know new perspectives of making decisions in a democratic way, of diversity and the relationship of majorities and minorities in society.I have to admit that I am really thankful that I could have been part of this seminar and I´m thankful for the experiences I have made in this week.I heard later that the dinner in the restaurant had been really fine and everyone arrived save in their homelands.

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So that´s it! That was Training Democracy 2011 in Bremen, Germany.I want to thank all who made this workshop possible, thanks to Lena from ServiceBureau and Anette from LidiceHaus, to Jens from Jugendhaus Buchte, to Riken from Gewitterziegen, to all guests of the World Cafe, to the canteen crew of LidiceHaus and, of course, to all participants! It is due to you that this week was one of the best in 2011!I would like to thank everybody who made this seminar possible, thanks to Lena from ServiceBureau and Anette from LidiceHaus, Jens from Jugendhaus Buchte, all guests of the World Cafe, the canteen crew of LidiceHaus and of course all participants! You all helped to make this week one of the bests in 2011!

Alex

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