Civil society

PDCS is a non-governmental organization providing professional training and facilitation services, consultancy and advisory services in areas of conflict resolution, support of dialogue in the society, citizen participation and civil society development in Slovakia and abroad.

We have been bringing to life the slogan of our organization „The Joy of Learning, Deliberation, and Change“ since 1991 when PDCS was started at the Comenius University in Bratislava as part of the international educational program of Partners for Democratic Change. In 1994, an independent PDCS foundation was established which has continued as a civic association since 1997. We are also members of the Partners Network (https://www.partnersglobal.org/) comprising 20 partner centers which share the same mission and values of democratic change.

For a long time we have worked to co-create and strengthen the democratic culture, spread participation approaches and mechanisms for dialogue and conflict prevention. We have provided help in international development programs and arranged cultured dialogue among various interest groups. We fulfill our mission by working with nonprofit organizations, public administration institutions and cross-sector partnerships. Our training courses have been attended by over 25,000 participants in Slovakia and 45 countries and regions of the world, including Abkhazia, Afghanistan, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kirgizstan, Kosovo, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Russia, Senegal, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United States, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

PDCS also published 30 books in 8 languages.

RAA - regional centers for foreigners' concerns, youth work and schools in the German state of Brandenburg - is a non-profit organization based in Potsdam. We manage six "Regionale Büros für Integration und Toleranz" (BIT) (regional offices for integration and open-mindedness) and four other offices as well as regional and local projects. In 2004, we established "Globales Lernen/Entwicklungszusammenarbeit" (global learning and cooperation for development). For us, global learning is about raising awareness of the world as a whole, of interrelations between North and South, and about relating our everyday life to the lives of people in developing countries. RAA is involved in an enormous variety of development-policy projects. We offer working groups, workshops, and training for teaching staff, and support schools in organizing workshops for students. Long-term projects include supporting school partnerships between schools in Brandenburg and schools in Senegal, Zanzibar/Tanzania and Angola, as well as smaller-scale initiatives. "Begegnungen mit Sansibar" (meeting Zanzibar) is a project that combines education and cooperation for development. Since 1992, more than 160 adolescents and teachers have been given the chance to gain deep insights into another culture and to help promote interactions between Germany and Tanzania, and more will follow. The project in Zanzibar encourages participants to closely examine both the foreign culture and their own. It includes such diverse activities as the building of classrooms, theater projects, thematic research, workshops, seminars and continuous education for teachers. In Germany, the results of this work are available as educational materials, thus enabling our partners from Tanzania to present their life and their views in Brandenburg. In addition, RAA is in charge of organizing and holding the "Brandenburger entwicklungspolitische Bildungs- und Informationstage" (Brandenburg educational and informational days on development aid) as well as the education program of the 'Berlin Import Shop' fair.

The Global Marshall Plan initiative gets on as an integrative platform for a world in balance. Consisting of a network from more than 5000 supporters from all levels of society, it gathers politics, economy and civil society with five core demands to a fairer globalization.

The association AFGHAN e. V. supports medical care, handcraft and education in Afghanistan since 2002. We have realized many projects in Afghanistan supporting schools and universities as well. The association consists of expert members such as journalists, med. doctors and engineers.

Daara.de is a project of the alliance “Eine Welt Schleswig-Holstein e. V.” Teachers and employees of nursery schools and youth facilities can find educational work support like consultants, teaching materials and agency in finding classrooms for their developing-political educational work.

Daara.de wants to

• make learning at school a good experience,
• increase the value of the developing-political education in Schleswig-Holstein,
• attract the interest of children and teenagers for “Eine Welt” and provide the ability to look at situations and problems in a worldwide and comprehensive connection.

The Program “Arbeit in Würde“ supports and accompanies Brücke • Le pont with 35 development projects for  discriminated for people in the countries Togo, Benin, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia and Brazil.

Education and support of the independency are the foundations of a sustainable development. People should be able to make a living from their work and to take responsibility for family and society. They need profitable or fairly paid work and just working conditions for it.For that they need profitable or fairly paid jobs and just working conditions for it.

Brücke • Le pont have been focusing on the following points:

• Income support
• Professional education
• Support of labour laws

The projects promote mainly adults, but also teenagers and children. They contribute to the parents so that they can take care of their children, and promote the equal rights of woman and man. Brücke • Le pont works mostly together with small and local organizations. They are close to the target population and know the social, cultural and political relations on site very well. Brücke • Le pont thinks highly of the fact that in the projects participative and locally adapted methods are being applied and that the cooperation is maintained on networks. This creates synergies and raises the effectiveness. Education is the foundation of development. It strengthens the self-esteem of the people and provides the necessary knowledge for them to perform a good and profitable work.

CO-OPERAID is a humanitarian Swiss association with its headquarters in Zurich. CO-OPERAIDis engaged in the international children’s right to education. Our projects in East Africa and Asiahelp impoverished children and young people with education and professional education. The aim of the projects is basic education for all children and the promotion of secondary and vocational education. At the same time the economic situation of the children’s and young people’s families is improved.

The Federation for Social Defence (German: Bund für Soziale Verteidigung, BSV) is an independent, non-governmental organisation based in Minden, Germany, that unites people and organisations of pacifist and antimilitarist conviction. The BSV was founded in 1989 as an umbrella organisation to promote social defence and other alternatives to the military, and to work for total disarmament. Its creation was the result of a big conference on social or civilian-based defence held in Minden, Germany, a year earlier. Currently, we actively support civil rights groups in Belarus and Ukraine, are engaged in advocacy work to promote the concept of Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping (UCP), and seek to counter the militarization of youth in (German) schools through peace education.