Workshops
a) Migrant self-organizations as spaces for informal human rights education
Migrant self-organizations play a crucial role as places of informal human rights education and political self-empowerment. Through their work, they contribute to the exchange of relevant knowledge and to strengthening the political participation and agency of refugees.
In this workshop, the speaker will present an educational practice that is oriented towards the realities of people's lives and addresses their specific problems. This educational practice should enable participants to critically question existing structures and develop alternative options for action.
The workshop will discuss why, in addition to legal aspects, it is also important to impart practical and resistant knowledge. Terms and demands such as "right to stay for all" will be important aspects of the workshop. Special attention will be paid to access to rights in Germany and the everyday experiences of refugees.
Speaker: Asmara Habtezion is an activist, community organizer and founder of the association Asmara's World e.V. The migrant self-organization Asmara's World e.V. is active in the areas of legal support and advice in all life situations, language support, political education, skills training and anti-racism work. Asmara Habtezion manages everything alone with people she has already helped and her large network of helpers, activists and organizations. For her, her critical attitude and her belief in solidarity are the keys to human coexistence.
b) The archive of refuge as a tool for educational practice
The Archive of Refuge as an oral history project and digital archive seeks to preserve the experiences of various people who have fled to Germany in the form of video interviews. In the spirit of "not about us without us", the Archive of Refuge is an attempt to involve experts with experience of displacement and/or racism.
In the 2.5-hour workshop, we will deal with the oral history project "Archive of Refuge". After brief introductory words on the methodology, the creation of the Archive of Refuge and previous educational formats for the Archive of Refuge, participants are invited to browse and exchange the stories of the interviewees themselves.
The aim of the workshop is to get to know the Archive of Refuge and to engage in an exchange about the possibilities of the Archive of Refuge for a transformative educational practice from a human rights-based perspective.
We will address the following questions:
- What similarities are reflected in the different experiences of displacement and what differences become evident?
- Which experiences of arrival and exclusion are repeated?
- How can the stories be embedded in the teaching of human rights education and criticism of racism?
- How can the Archive of Refuge be successfully transferred from mainly cultural and academia debates to civil society?
- How could oral history approaches, such as the Archive of Refuge, be incorporated into history lessons?
Speaker: Francesca Sika Dede Puhlmann is an educational consultant and yoga teacher. In addition to her work with the "Bildung Macht Rassismus" initiative, she is also involved in the field of empowerment. Among other things, she worked on the "Film Macht Mut" project as a concept developer, which places the criticism of racism at the center of film mediation. She has published on decolonization practices of Black women* in "Sisters and Souls 2" by Natasha A. Kelly (ed.) and in the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor of the DeZim Institute with the article "Umgangsformen von BIPoC in Deutschland". For several years, she worked with refugee children in emergency shelters. For the "Archive of Refuge”, she developed and tested educational formats and workshops in the field of racism criticism together with young people.
c) Accessibility of civic education/human rights education and educational institutions
The European Youth Education and Youth Exchange Center has been offering a qualification programme in human rights education since 2016, and in its current form since 2020, by inviting migrants and refugees in particular to enter the professional field of human rights education/political education. The diverse intersectionally positioned team explores together what HRE can look like and what is needed to make it inclusive for everyone. Central to this process is the question of how educational institutions, the professional field and traditional political education practices can be made more accessible to people with migrant and refugee backgrounds.
In this workshop, we would like to share our experiences and take a joint step towards answering this question.
Speakers: Dorit Machell, Gifty Nyame Tabiri and Facilitator from the EJB Weimar network
