Democracy

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.

The Afro-Asian Institute Salzburg (AAI) is a non-profit organisation with close ties to the university of Salzburg. It is financed by the public funds and the Catholic Church. The aims of the AAI are to provide educational services on development policy, to enable intercultural encounters and to promote interfaith dialogue.
The AAI is a meeting place for different cultures and religions. We show different global contexts through a varied educational and cultural program in order to raise awareness of injustices and set out development policy issues and its risks in the context of globalization. Affected individuals, as well as experts from the global South have an opportunity in our organization to take the floor. Within the framework of the AAI scholarship program, students from African, Asian and Latin American countries receive financial support, as well as a personal accompaniment and take part in our educational program.

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.

Greenpeace is an international environmental organization which fights with direct actions free of power for the protection of the natural resources of human and nature and for justice for all living beings. Greenpeace works on the subjects of seas, agriculture, rubbish, forests, climate changes, biodiversity, energy transition, the arctic, environment & economy. Greenpeace was founded in 1971 and today it is represented in more than 40 countries. More than three million people support Greenpeace worldwide, out of that are about 590,000 conveyor members in Germany. Greenpeace works independently of governments, parties and economic interest groups. Greenpeace doesn’t get any financial help from the EU or UN for their projects.

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.

This organisation focuses on continuing education for managerial staff in public administration.

Peace Brigades International (PBI) has been the leading organization for unarmed protective accompaniment and observation of human rights in conflict areas for over 30 years. International teams accompany threatened activists who work for peace, democracy and justice.

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.

The Anne Frank centre in Berlin is a partner organisation of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Its main focus is to promote across Germany the memory of Anne Frank and her famous diary. The activities of the Anne Frank Zentrum seek to strengthen the values of freedom, equality and democracy and combat Antisemitism, racism and discrimination. The Anne Frank Zentrum displays the exhibition »Anne Frank. here & now« in Berlin and coordinates travelling exhibition projects throughout Germany. It develops proposals that serve to explore the causes and consequences of the Holocaust and it also offers special one-day events, seminars and opportunities for continuing education. The pedagogical programs developed by the Zentrum are especially aimed at young people, who are encouraged to become more active citizens, more aware of their societal responsibilities and also to learn to make the most of their freedom to participate in society.

Third World Saar Campaign (Aktion 3. Welt Saar) is a social organization that is not linked to any political party. We are not involved in any projects in the Third World because we think that we do not have the right to develop people in other countries. Our objective is to make a difference in Germany. For centuries, Europe has forced its ideas about development upon other countries and thereby destroyed development programs that were already in process. Now it is time to put an end to this kind of violent development policy.

Since we are not associated with any political party, we refuse to focus on one individual objective. Some people expect us to stand up exclusively for topics related to the Third World and stay out of German politics because they assume we cannot achieve anything anyway. But instead, we interfere because we care. We want to bring about changes in Germany.

As an organization that is not linked to any political party, we commit ourselves to topics such as fair trade, world trade, nutrition, political asylum, racism, migration, energy policies, anti-Semitism, militarization, ecology and development policies. Above all, we try to do something about the unequal distribution of goods in the world. We intend to make sure that everyone has access to intellectual and material resources and does not live in poverty and misery.

We, the Third World Saar Campaign,

• are financed by our members and sponsors and are not linked to any political party, church or lobby;
• annually organize 120 events and campaigns independently or in cooperation with other organizations;
• establish networks, link up groups and people and initiate campaigns;
• recommend speakers and provide counselling for the organization of events;
• publish the results of our research and studies on a regular basis.