More about our work

Our association has been existing for more than 10 years in Saxony. Saxony is one of the five newly-formed German states. Our office started ten year ago as a consulting office for NGO's, working in the cultural and juvenile area. We gave advise and support to many particularly small NGO´s, in order to help them to develop more professionalism. We have been especially interested in participation processes for citizens. Therefore we developed special methods to motivate and encourage citizens to take over more responsibility within our society.

In the summer of 2001 there has been an attempt of a synagogue in a big German city. Politicians were shocked, the administration was defenceless and citizens who were mostly silent.

As a consequence, certain questions were raised within the civil society, as:

How can we develop a more democratic life for all people in our society?
How can we get into a public discussion about how to handle the problems of right wing extremism, racism and anti-Semitism?
How can we involve many people, especially young ones, into this process?

The German Government initiated a support program called "CIVITAS". So we were able to developed and start our concept of "mobile consultation for more democracy against right wing extremism and racism".

We have been working in Saxony for more than three years now. Six advisers mostly work in small and medium villages and towns, because they have the biggest problems with right wing extremism and racism.. But the problems with right wing extremism are just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to really understand whats going on in rural areas you need to pay attention to the whole situation. There is a high rate of unemployment and a lack of money and therefore shortcuts for NGO's, who offer juvenile and cultural work.. Many people, especially young ones, move to bigger town, to richer parts of Germany or to foreign countries, in order to have better chances for education, jobs and a better living situation in general.. Most of the people who stay are older, less educated and more isolated.

There is also a tendency of municipalities to hide or downplay problems with right wing extremism, because of a fear of bad image.

Our work is to find local partners, who can explain the situation and give many information about the municipality. We get together with police, politicians, administration, with NGO´s working in the area, with committed citizens, with schools, parents, churches and so on - with everybody who can tell us more about life in this community.

We add information on information in order to get a understanding of the certain situation and its problems. These problems can be, for instance:

First example:
The village has a youth club that is dominated by right wing extremism juveniles. They welcome citizens and the police with "Heil Hitler", attack young people, who don't share their opinion and use the club for training of cadres for right wing extremism parties.

Second example:
2.500 young and old Neo-Nazis gather at a press meeting, and the community can't prevent it.

Third example:
Young people gather at the bus stop every day attacking citizens over and over again.

We believe that the people in the community themselves, are the experts for their problems and it's solution. Our turn is to support them, motivate them and connect them with helpful partners and to accompany the process for more democracy.

Possible results can be:
a new concept for the youth work in the community
a reopened youth club with straight rules that can't be broken by right wing extremism young people
a round table talk with mayors of communities dealing with the question "How can I prevent a dominated extremism feeling in my community?