On Friday, January 17, 2014, the Wannsee Forum signed the first trilateral cooperation agreement with the Goethe-Institut Berlin and the Nelson Mandela School Workshop. The agreement marks the success of the three partners' four-year collaboration in organizing and implementing the International Project Workshop.
The signing ceremony was held by Nikky Keilholz-Rühle for the Goethe-Institut Berlin, Brigitte Kather for the Nelson Mandela School, and Bettina Heinrich for the WannseeFORUM Foundation. The celebratory event was held with the public presentation of the artistic results of the 2014 workshop. Running until 2016, the contract includes an automatic extension for another three years, thus ensuring the continuation of the project.
The International Project Workshop – an artistic language learning format
Within the International Project Workshop, young people from all over the world and Berlin schoolchildren develop projects on a socio-political topic in artistic workshops. The young guests from abroad participate in a German course offered by the Goethe-Institut at the WannseeFORUM for three weeks and meet the participants from Berlin in the second week.
The concept combines artistic work with intensive language development, as art projects require a great deal of communication and strong collaboration between participants. In addition, each group meets once a day, as needed, for a language workshop with a Goethe-Institut teacher. Here, theater texts are rehearsed, terminology is clarified, and articles are edited.
This year's International Project Workshop took place from January 12 to 18, 2014, and brought together 62 young people from four continents at the WannseeFORUM.