UXC II goes Berlin - Workshop on the planned Curriculum "Citizen Diplomacy"

Mid-January 2025, Liza Warncke travelled to Berlin to discuss the current status of the ‘Citizen Diplomacy’ curriculum and further steps with the institutes Welt:Stadt:Quartier and Planpolitik.

Many ideas were discussed over four hours. In particular, the needs assessments conducted in advance with participating vhs laid the foundation for a rough concept. One important finding of the workshop was that motivation must be high and the added value for the vhs should be clearly defined. International project work must be well prepared, and the topics should appeal to people directly, so that personal motivation of the employees is also possible. The search for partners was also frequently mentioned as a critical point. Intercultural sensitivity, getting to know each other personally and finding out what the partners have in common are among the most important cornerstones. Further, the workshop participants were able to identify ideas for templates, such as checklists, agreements, budget templates, etc., which should help to facilitate the joint work. The basic topics, such as town twinning and citizen diplomacy, should be used as a common thread and as a starting point for initiating and finding topics.

The Urban X-Change project (UXC) has been connecting adult education centres (vhs) in Germany with adult education institutions in Ukraine, the USA, the UK and, since 2024, with a special focus on Poland and again Ukraine. Based on the experience gained in recent years, the idea was developed to create a guide to international project work specifically tailored to German adult education centres (vhs). The need for this became clear from the 13 partnership projects carried out so far as part of the UXC.

In September 2025, the guide is to ‘go online’ and be available for German adult education centres (vhs). In addition, training courses on international project work will be offered in autumn 2025.