Anyone Can Be a culture maker
Since our motto is that everybody can become a culture maker, we wanted to help even the smallest ones among us to become cultural creators themselves. Within the framework of the program „Kultur macht Stark“, hosted by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, we collaborated with „Technai“ an initiative for art and cultural education. KS supported the lovely artists of this initiative to implement creative projects in three different schools in Friedrichshain and Lichtenberg, starting from spring 2020. We really enjoyed being part of this journey since Kulturschöpfer wants to make sure that absolutely everyone is able to participate in cultural or artistic projects to engage with others while creating with their hands and being inspired by the work we are making collaboratively. I had the opportunity to assist the artists as a volunteer in a few workshops myself and I would say that the projects were a wonderful way of letting children participate in culture. The project also showed that the understanding of integration and kindness is an important value that can easily be deepened among the children during artistic and creative work.
Education in our neighborhood
It is important to ensure participation and cultural education in our neighborhood and thats why KS is proud to say that we could play a part in this project. The programs were focused on giving a deeper socio-cultural and creative-artistic education to the children of our partner schools. Especially because some of the schools teach mainly students who come from educationally disadvantaged families with a generally low income, it is quite fundamental to generate chances of artistic work and cultural recreation for the kids. Furthermore the amounts of children who don’t speak German as their native language were quite high in some of the workshop groups. That emphasizes the importance for the project leaders to design an open space for every child to create at their own pace and to try to work over possible communication issues together as a group.
The partner Blumen-Grundschule for example, supervised at the time of the project students from 27 different countries. Though it was sometimes a challenge for the workshop leaders and also for the students to maneuver through language barriers and different social dynamics, there was still an impressive working atmosphere developed during the process of the workshop week. Together the children got the opportunity to explore nature with an artistic eye, learn about prehistoric painting, get to know different types of stones and how to work with them. The second project taught the kids about the world of wildlife, we visited the zoo to draw real-live animals and they got to have their own mini Vernissage with their own works. It was nice to see the joy and empowerment the children got from those experiences. In the groups, social relationships among each other became more intense and even gained a new quality, while working together and helping each other. The projects reached about 400 children and KS got to work as a link between in-school and out-of-school leisure activities in the children's socio-spatial environment.
integration in our neighborhood
To rethink integration in our neighborhood, we need to understand that this Inclusion process needs time and isn’t happening over night. That’s why it is a must to show integration as an early concept in the classroom. We need to built bridges early on, whether that is between the students of non-German origin, between the children of German origin and non-German origin or between students of different social backgrounds and status, etc.. We should make sure that kids have the possibility to get taught with open minded principles and that they learn from an early start, that everyone has the right to participate and that we should treat all people as equals. Artistic collaboration can help during this learning process. We experienced first hand how fruitful projects like „Kultur im Stein“ or „Fauchen, Kratzen, Beißen“ can be to create togetherness among the children. The students connected through their work and during the excursions. They exchanged ideas, gave feedback and tips to help each other, so everyone could create their perfect piece of art. Friends were made, stories exchanged and that all in a diverse group, in which not even the communication language was uniform. But that didn’t stop us to try our best to support everyone.
Community collaboration
I think that the collaboration between „Technai“, the schools and KS was a valuable starting point in improving integration, creating equal opportunities and to make the school life of students more colorful and exciting. We can learn a lot from the experiences we collected throughout the program period. Now it is most essential to act on this new knowledge and create new ways and possibilities to redesign integration in Friedrichshain and Berlin. New projects lay ahead of us and I am sure that we will find a way together to spread openness, equality and participation throughout the city with the help of art and culture. We can see in those past school projects that integration is a challenge, yes, but definitely manageable: Even the smallest ones can handle it, so let’s handle it together!