Social Policy

As Development Education Centre we aim to raise awareness of peace and environment related issues through information and education.

The W3_ is an educational and cultural center around global justice. It offers a platform for encounters and exchange and, with its diverse program of events, encourages critical questioning of social conditions. It invites to inspiration, to experience, to reflection and to common action for a global and local justice.

With lectures, workshops, conferences, symposia, readings, performances as well as film screenings and actions, W3_ establishes the connection between local politics and global developments in series of events, projects as well as individual and cooperative events and motivates people to get involved. With dialogue-oriented/participative formats such as performances and actions in public space, spontaneous interactions with residents of the district are realized, which actively call for participation.

It is important to W3_ to focus on less present voices and alternative perspectives, to make them audible and visible, and to think and link local and global dimensions together. The goal is always to make people think, to provide inspiration and ideas for their own everyday lives, and to show options for action.

FAIR for all generations FAIR education - Our campaigns are aimed at schools, kindergartens and day-care centres (Kitas), extracurricular actors in the greater Saarbrücken area and Saarland University. Several "Fair Kitas", "Fairtrade Schools" and "Fairtrade Universities" from the greater Saarbrücken area have already been awarded. School classes and courses from the Saarbrücken region have already received the award "Fair School Class - Fair Trade Class" more than 100 times. Through our young "Fair Trade Ambassadors" as multipliers and through our wide-ranging commitment, we reach a broad public. The guiding principle of our network is Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).

The experience of the peaceful "Wende" in 1989 awakened in many people the hope that a Germany without a military could be possible. This hope led people from various civil initiatives in Halle together to found the Friedenskreis in 1990. The Friedenskreis Halle e.V. is an group of people of differing world views, religions, nationalities and political affiliations. We see peace not as a state of being or as a distant goal, and not simply as the absence of war. Peace is for us a means to a common, just and non-violent life together in diversity, where the personal development and liberty of the individual is made possible. The conception of this life together is always a new experience. This is why we try to explore, find and pass on new ways of doing so, while never forgetting to question the same. We are consequently involved in education, peace-associated activities and in projects for civil conflict resolution on both the domestic and international levels. Our work is made possible by paid and voluntary staff and carried through donations and public subsidies. Our current programme and projects

• Seminars and educational programmes in the areas of communication, conflict resolution, mediation, dealing with violence and learning how to speak out
• Consulting for initiatives and projects
• Lectures and seminars on current peace-associated themes
• Civil conflict resolution through the development of an educational and encounter centre in Jajce, Bosnia.
• Work camps, youth encounters and volunteer work in the countries of the Balkans.
• Counselling on military service and conscientious objection
• Cooperation in activities and campaigns against militarisation
• Coordination of the initiative "Zivilcourage: Bündnis für Gewaltlosigkeit, Demokratie und Toleranz in Halle"

We support teachers in Switzerland at all levels in their daily work by giving them impulses for their lessons which are directed towards a viable development in a global society. We sell and lend over 800 tried and tested teaching aids in German, French and Italian language. We provide teacher training. We inform and advise with relation to Global Education. We are part of a network of national and international organisations having similar aims.