The goal of this project was to offer our educational staff the opportunity to learn about the connections between stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination and racism and what this has to do with valuing diversity in a high-quality training abroad and to learn what ways there are to deal with the issues in educational work and to manage conflicts successfully. Learning to develop a creative and inclusive learning atmosphere in the classroom is of great importance. Another goal of the project was to get to know successful concepts and concrete, structured and creative cooperative learning methods in order to be able to use them especially in courses with learners whose mother tongue is not German and thus to better design the lessons. By qualifying the staff of the association and its cooperation partners with regard to teaching adults and dealing with the aforementioned sensitive topics, we wanted to achieve that the employees of the participating institutions are able to conduct high-quality educational seminars and workshops in the medium and long term.
The applicant VkII e.V. has cooperated with the Icelandic institution Intercultural Iceland (ICI) for a long time and has had very good experiences in trainings and projects with it. The topic "Strengthening Democracy - Fighting Discrimination" is of great importance for the participating institutions and the educational staff themselves, since they are confronted with the topic because of their skin color in their everyday, private and professional lives. The participating African institutions and the affected persons themselves do not want to be seen as victims and to have to react emotionally to discrimination, but to be able to actively deal with the topic themselves in their courses and trainings in a professional and expert manner in the sense of empowerment. This was the main reason for carrying out the project. The course offered by the Icelandic institution Intercultural Iceland, entitled "Sensitivity training with regard to the issues of migration, racism, discrimination, culture and diversity in adult education. Strategies for teaching in multicultural groups" incorporates qualitative concepts and methods that educational staff can apply directly to their educational programs.