Völker UNESCO World Document Heritage ("Memory of the World") in cultural education

The model project TELL ME YOUR STORY for the participation of refugees and civil society engagement on the basis of the "Children's and Household Tales" of the Brothers Grimm
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-7549-7321-9
Verlag: epubli
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 300 Seiten

The model project Tell me Your Story for the participation of refugees and civic engagement is based on the 'children's fairy tales' by the Brothers Grimm. In an innovative approach to cultural mediation, which focuses on mutual storytelling instead of the one-sided 'learning' of a culture, the model project Tell me Your Story, initiated and developed by the author, conceived and implemented a variety of didactic and artistic working materials. These enable a dialogue across linguistic and cultural barriers across the common memory horizon of the fairy tales. Nothing else in the diverse and generational work of the Brothers Grimm has such international distribution and artistic, literary, media and scientific resonance as their fairy tale collection. There are fairy tales and stories all over the world. This also makes them a suitable starting point for communication in integration, inclusion and participation projects and opens a fruitful field of research for cultural heritage studies as well as for cultural education - both rather young scientific disciplines. The project Tell me Your Story is a model for further moderated contact and communication projects between refugees and citizens in Germany and the research on it reaches out to related spheres in education as well as politics. Thematic fields of integration and participation are analyzed as well as the chances and possibilities of world heritage and world documentary heritage in the field of impact of cultural identity and its integrative potential.

Dr. Susanne Völker studied art history, philosophy, law and museum management in Hamburg and Vienna and did her Ph.D. in the field of Cultural studies. Susanne Völker has been head of the cultural department of the city of Kassel since 2017. Previously, the art historian and cultural manager was entrusted with project management for the new Brothers Grimm exhibition hall GRIMMWELT Kassel. In 2015 she was able to successfully open the house as founding director. She focuses on the themes of cultural development planning, cultural promotion, development of cultural institutions, integration and inclusion, cultural and World Heritage education.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Völker, Susanne

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The TELL ME YOUR STORY Model Project

Concept and objectives

The TELL ME YOUR STORY model project is based on an innovative approach to cultural mediation that focuses on mutual storytelling and not on the one-sided learning of a culture, as it was possible to develop and evaluate didactic and artistic working materials that can be used in a variety of ways and enable a dialogue across language and cultural barriers through the common memory horizon of fairy tales. The project aimed at the realization of criteria catalogues for the subsequent development of qualified, interdisciplinary and widely applicable working materials for educators, social workers and volunteers in integration projects between refugees and German citizens. These can be children, young people as well as adults. The working materials are to be used independently, such as in schools, and can also be integrated into existing projects. Qualified and universally applicable working materials offer a professional and helpful handout in the project result – not as "teaching materials" for refugees, but as an offer for reciprocity and dialogue on an equal footing. The TELL ME YOUR STORY project can thus serve as a model for further moderated contact projects between refugees and citizens of different cities and communities. The working materials developed can also be used independently in projects in the long term.

TELL ME YOUR STORY was initially aimed at refugees of all ages, cultural backgrounds and countries of origin expecting to stay in Germany for a longer period of time who are invited to actively come into contact with the people, language and cultural self-image of their place of arrival. Equally, it is aimed at children, young people, families and committed citizens to make a contribution to mutual understanding together with the refugees. The goal is intercultural dialogue on a personal, per se initially not ideological or religious level. In addition, intercultural competence is developed in the project work, which can be passed on, for example, to training courses or exchanges between cultural institutions. The project goals can be achieved through the direct encounter of people from different cultures and the exchange about fairy tales, stories and storytelling traditions.

In detail, the project goals in the area of qualitative goals{97} were the development of qualified, interdisciplinary and broadly applicable working materials for educators, social workers and volunteers in integration projects between refugees and German citizens, as well as communication-based integration through mutual trust-building and understanding, which goes beyond pure German lessons and help with visits to the authorities. The following quantitative goals were also formulated for the project: the participation of about 400 people with and without refugee experience, the implementation of 15  workshops, the creation of qualified and broadly applicable working materials for integration projects with refugees in an initial print run of 5,000 boxes and their use throughout Germany in at least ten integration projects (e.g., in schools, refugee shelters and existing integration projects), and the publication of the materials. The structural requirements for the project included adherence to the project duration until November 2018 and its budget, professional management and implementation of the workshops, evaluation and material development, close cooperative interlocking between cultural, scientific, artistic and practically active projects and actors in integration, and the creation of opportunities for follow-up projects. This claim naturally starts with the measurable effects of the project, which can be evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. Effects that are not or not yet measurable – such as increased confidence on the part of those involved in the exchange on both sides, the emergence of sympathy through personal acquaintance, the motivation to develop and implement one's own ideas and projects without having to achieve public project status, or a positive reinforcement of civil society commitment through networking and the possibility of exchange – cannot or can hardly be  substantiated in concrete terms at this point. However, they are empirical values of the project participants and should therefore not go unmentioned in the overall consideration of the effects and impacts of the project, also because they are core elements of a constructive discourse community on an equal footing.

Achievement of objectives at a glance

All set goals of the project conception were jointly achieved in its realization {98}: More than 400 people participated in 15 workshops. The participants came from 16 countries: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Germany, Eritrea, Iraq, Iran, Italy, Lebanon, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia, South Korea, Syria, Turkey, and Ukraine. Communication in the  workshops took place in 13 languages: Arabic, Dari, German, English, Farsi, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian, Russian, Somali, Tigrinya, Turkish, and Urdu. Around 100 hours of video material were produced for the film documentation. A conference organized within the framework of the project brought together 24 regional and supra-regional institutional actors in the field of integration. The evaluation of the workshops attested the project an integrative as well as inclusive character.{99} For the subsequent conception and implementation of the working materials, illustrators, designers and copywriters from different countries of origin were found and the materials successfully developed together. The subsequent testing of the methods and the working materials ensured the second stage of quality assurance. The production of the boxes was increased from an initial 5,000 to 9,000 copies. The material boxes were sent to 366 (of the planned ten) institutions such as schools and other educational institutions, charities, universities, church institutions, municipal offices, museums, foundations, libraries and initiatives involved in refugee aid in all German federal states, Austria and Switzerland. All materials were also published online free of charge and freely available at www.grimmwelt.de/erzaehlmirdeinegeschichten. An exhibition on the project at the GRIMM WORLD entitled UNBOXING - Tell Me Your Story attracted over 44,425 visitors (15,000 were planned for). The touring exhibition accompanying the project was shown in four German cities (Dresden, Mainz, Hamburg, Münster). The methods and working materials were published in six journals, blogs and newsletters as well as 69 press releases. Teacher workshops were held. The project was presented at 13 multiplier workshops and six conferences and congresses. Documentation and an overall report were produced. The project was implemented within the approved budget.

The project realization

After the overall conception and application by the author, the approval of the application for project funding by the Federal Ministry of Culture and Media (BKM) and differentiation of the project conception, the acquisition of the central project partners – especially the University of Kassel and the City of Kassel – as well as the filling of positions for project assistance (July 2016) and coordination (October 2016) could take place. An initial discussion with the University of Kassel and the Kunsthochschule Kassel took place in June 2016. An inaugural planning meeting with the initial refugee reception center in Kassel-Niederzwehren followed in August 2016.

At the same time, the advisory board members were recruited. The advisory board of the TELL ME YOUR STORY project comprised eight members who participated in the two advisory board meetings. The advisory board members were Bertram Hilgen (Lord Mayor of the City of Kassel until 2017), Christian Geselle (Lord Mayor of the City of Kassel since 2017), Prof. Dr. Finkeldey (President of the University of Kassel), Prof. Joel Baumann (Rector of the Kunsthochschule Kassel), Prof. Dr. Ströter-Bender (Professor at the Institute for Art, Music, Textiles at the University of Paderborn and UNESCO Representative for the World Documentary Heritage), Prof. Dr. Christina von Braun (Professor at the Institute for Cultural Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin and 2nd Vice-President of the Goethe-Institut), Dr. Claudia Pecher (Lecturer at the Institute for Youth Book Research at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and President of the German Academy for Children's and Youth Literature), Manuel Hartung (Head of Department of ZEIT CHANCEN and Editor of ZEIT CAMPUS and ZEIT SPECIAL) and Martin Lauer (Head of the of Hessischer Rundfunk’s “hr1” and “hr4” radio programs).{100}

The workshops took place between September and December 2016. The workshop phase served to develop methods for integration in the context of cultural education. The five workshops from the fields of music, visual arts, architecture, sociology and design were dedicated to the following main topics and methods against the background of the Grimm fairy tales as a content-related impulse and with reference to the refugee experience of the participants{101}:

The Town Musicians: Count, Tell workshop developed music-based methods of understanding, as well as group and confidence building with...