Non-Governmental Organization

YFU is a non-profit student exchange program. They place students in over 30 countries and accommodate students from over 40 countries in Germany. For one year, students live with a host family and attend school.

In favour of a culture of understanding: What exactly is racism? How did it arise? How does it work? What can I do against it? What is my identity as a person of colour? What is a white identity in the battle against racism? We are searching for and giving answers to these questions. Our members are people of colour, black and white people from various countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.

To this end, we are offering individual counselling and training such as

• black consciousness training
• black empowerment training
• anti-racism training
• racism awareness training
• hip hop training
• seminars on intercultural competence

Additionally, our members are working on topics such as black and white identity, models of conflict resolution, development of ways of living based on equal rights in an environment of globalisation as well as interculturality and anti-racism activities.

Peer leader International (PLI) is a youth project for the realization of the „general explanation of the human rights“ and for the sustainability goals (SDGs) of Rio20. Besides the main location in the East Frisian Ostrhauderfehn there is an additional Peer leader's team in Brunswick, as well as in South Africa (Pretoria/city of Tshwane, Winterveld), Brazil (Visconde de Mauá) Bosnia-Herzegovina (Banja Luka) and soon in the Ukraine, further in Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, in Malawi and Uganda.

Peer leader-International gives young people between 12 and 26 years the opportunity to try out and get to know new things, to prepare a self-determined, engaged and cosmopolitan life. The main focus is to learn and have fun through personal responsibility and joint work of charitable projects.

Peer leaders are involved in the areas of FairPlanet, Health, Climate, Escape and Human rights, Participation. Since 2017 the project "an extracurricular learning place of the federal state Lower Saxony" is operated in many schools.

An NGO dedicated to empowering Women.

We have set up a co-operative for seven women headed families and are endeavoring to develop an agricultural project to empower them financially.

The registered association ‘One World Medical Network’ provides training for medical staff in developing and newly industrialised countries and supports professionals who are dealing with patients in difficult medical conditions. Our aim is to provide ’help for self-help’ for medical staff, regardless of their home country and religion.

The OeVA - Oecumenical Planing-Comittee for the Intercultural Week in Germany (ÖVA - Ökumenische Vorbereitungsausschuss) prepares the annual intercultural week (IKW) which is taking place all over the country. It recommends content focuses, suggests a theme, carries out the annual, nationwide preparatory conference  offers materials available for the preparatory groups and organizes a central nationwide inaugural event.In the EPC 15 members are appointed from the churches. Up to six additional members are coopted from institutions, organizations and socially important areas.

What is the intercultural week?
The annual intercultural week (IKW) is an initiative of the German bishops' conference (DBK - Deutschen Bischofskonferenz), the Protestant church in Germany (EKD - Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland) and the Greek-orthodox Metropolie that takes place throughout all Germany. The intercultural week is held ince 1975 at the end of September and is supported by churches, local authority districts, welfare associations, trade unions, integration advisory boards and commissioned, migrant's organizations and initiative groups. In 2016 about 5,000 events were carried out in more than 500 towns and municipalities. The Refugee Day is a component of the intercultural week.

Goals:

• Support and promotion of human rights work
• Research on human rights matters
• Promotion of human rights education
• Communication and exchange of information with other human rights organisations

We work on the local, regional and international levels to promote and defend human rights. This work includes organisation of conferences and seminars and participation in research projects, publication of documents, and educational efforts concerning human rights.

Mobile Bildung e. V. advises Weltläden (special shops selling fair trade goods). They are also involved in educational and public relations work in the area of fair trade. The association is the responsible body of the Hamburg fair trade alliance for action: Hamburg mal fair. It directs its educational opportunities at schools and the public with themes that change every year such as football, chocolate, cotton etc. With these projects the alliance aims at promoting an awareness of justice and injustice in world trade.

Help for Women in Africa, Asia and Latin America

The Marie Schlei Association was founded in 1984 in memory of Marie Schlei, the former German Minister for Development Policy. According to the statutes of this non-profit association, its objectives are "to promote cooperation with poor women, women's groups and organizations, to help educate and train women, to provide information about the causes of poverty and injustice and to promote equal rights for women. We inform the public about the situation of these women in order to raise and increase awareness as well as a feeling of responsibility and the willingness to help the women and therefore all people in the developing countries."

The Marie Schlei Association encourages women to create self-help projects. In the past two decades, about 300 projects have been successfully carried out in 45 different countries, from Argentina to Zimbabwe. All projects were planned and realized by local women's groups and organizations. In order for projects to be successful, the following criteria must be met: time schedules and curricula have to be adjusted to the women's daily routine. The projects have to be effective and applicable to everyday life in order to make the additional work bearable for the women. Cooking, child care, household chores, getting water and heating material – project work adds additional work to their daily responsibilities. Nevertheless, these women want and need these projects, since they offer them the only possible access to education and training and thus to their own income. Our female partners are responsible for "their projects and the management of the material required. The solidarity among women they experience also creates an atmosphere of partnership and mutual cooperation. The Marie Schlei Association works for equal opportunities and justice.