Projects

Impulse Boost Camp

For ten days, twenty young social activists from Europe and its neighbouring countries come together in a cozy house in the German Ore Mountains. The aim of the German foundation ifzw impulsstiftung and me is to create a space where participants can take a step back, relax and look at their own activism. In several workshops on modern team work, communication and project management, participants explore how voluntary engagement can be more fun and efficient.
After being a participant of IBC’s sister project in 2013, I interned at the foundation and soon after became Junior Trainer and project coordinator. In 2016, my colleague and me transformed the project into a replicator seminar. Since 2019, I serve as project manager and group facilitator. When I talk about my work, I usually say that I have found my dream-job already.

Humanity in Action

In 2019, I became a fellow of the Humanity in Action Fellowship in Warsaw, Poland. With 24 other activists from different countries we looked at the situation of minority groups in Poland and the world and discussed what steps could be taken to a more just society. During the four-week long training programme I also implemented a project within the initiative Human Library Warsaw. We came up with a concept on how to create more public awareness about the living conditions of minority groups and prototyped the project. In order to become a senior fellow, one has to implement a so called Action Project. Here you can find out more how that looked like in my case.

Informationen für Deutschland

Just a few months before the German national elections, a few friends and I were worried about right-wing populists winning seats in the German national parliament for the first time since 1945. We thought: What can we do to fight right-wing populism in short time left? We came up with a poster campaign that disproves right-wing stereotypes by using facts and fundraised 26.000 Euros that funded 1.200 posters in the four major Eastern German cities. They still won way too many seats in the elections, but at least we tried to contribute.

Federal Foreign Office

In 2018 and 2019 I free-lanced for the German Federal Foreign Office’s department Training for International Diplomats. My favourite project was a Regional Network Meeting for members of both civil society and diplomacy on the topic of Migration and Education that took place in Nairobi, Kenia. Our aim: Connecting different actors from different places of the world having different perspectives on the topic in order to exchange approaches to solutions of today’s migration obstacles.

Another project that I coordinated was a 3-week long programme for Diplomats from Iraq. Together, we explored the German-Iraqi relations and how Germany learned its lessons from its horrific past. What did I learn? A bunch! But also that diplomacy is a highly complex process that – if we listen to each other – can actually lead to peace and better living standards of both countries.

Political Work

I come from a small town in Saxony, East Germany. The region is facing right-wing extremism for many years. Already as a teenager, this problem was very evident for me. As a member of the Youth Parliament of Plauen, I organised many protests against right-wing extremists together with other actors of civil society and became the young face of the region’s democracy movement. Based on those achievements, I was asked to run as candidate for municipality elections in 2014. From 2014 to 2016 I served as member of the city council of my hometown and participated in democratic processes in the Committees for Culture and Sport as well as for Education and Youth. This work was challenging, however, I always wanted to take profound decisions that would make me sleep well at night, also after a 7-hour long city council meeting. In no other activity of my life, I have learned so much as during those two years being a city council member.