German-Polish Youth Office

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German-Polish Youth
Office (DPJW)
logo
founding 1991
Seat • Potsdam
• Warsaw
purpose Promotion of German-Polish school and extracurricular youth exchanges
Action space • Germany
• Poland
Managing directors • Stephan Erb
• Ewa Nocoń
Employees 35 (2019)
Website • dpjw.org
• pnwm.org

The German-Polish Youth Office ( DPJW for short ; Polish: Polsko-Niemiecka Współpraca Młodzieży, PNWM for short) is an international organization that was founded in 1991 by the governments of Germany and Poland . Its task is to promote contacts between young people from both countries and thus to support mutual getting to know and understanding. The DPJW is financed by government contributions from both countries. On the German side, the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth is in charge, on the Polish side, the Ministry of National Education.

history

The agreement on the establishment of the German-Polish Youth Office was signed on June 17, 1991, at the same time as the agreement on good neighbors and friendly cooperation was signed . The then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Polish counterpart Tadeusz Mazowiecki , the first non-communist Prime Minister in Poland, took the initiative to establish it . The DPJW began its work on January 1, 1993, with offices in Potsdam and Warsaw .

Since the youth organization was founded, around 80,000 projects have been implemented in which over three million young people have participated (as of October 2019). In recent years, the DPJW has funded up to 2,500 projects with up to 100,000 young people from Germany and Poland every year. The German Federal President and the Polish President have supported the contribution of the German-Polish youth exchange to good neighborly relations and European integration since 2010 through their joint patronage of the DPJW.

About the organization

The German-Polish Youth Office has an office in Potsdam and one in Warsaw, each of which is headed by a managing director who jointly forms the management. The employees of both offices work together in mixed national teams and speak both languages. The division of tasks is based on content and not according to national responsibilities. The funding department of the Potsdam office is responsible for extracurricular youth exchanges and sport, the funding department of the Warsaw office for school exchanges. The DPJW currently has 35 employees.

The German-Polish Youth Office works closely with other youth work institutions in Germany and Poland. When processing the submitted funding applications, tasks are shared with the so-called central offices - independent organizations and associations that award funding on behalf of the DPJW and advise the project organizers. The DPJW is in constant partnership with the central offices.

The supervisory body of the youth work is the German-Polish Youth Council. The chairpersons on the German side are the Minister for Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth Franziska Giffey , on the Polish side the Minister for National Education Dariusz Piontkowski. The German-Polish Youth Council consists of 24 people, twelve per country. Representatives of ministries and government institutions from Germany and Poland each occupy six seats. Non-governmental organizations dealing with youth work or international relations have six seats on the youth council in each country.

tasks

"The German-Polish Youth Office has the task of promoting mutual acquaintance, mutual understanding and close cooperation between young people in Germany and Poland in every way."

In concrete terms, this means that the DPJW grants grants for German-Polish youth exchanges and those with a partner from a third country. At the same time, it supports the organizers of the encounters with advice, information, publications, further training or in the search for a project partner. The financial support of the DPJW is not tied to specific topics, types of events or educational concepts. What is more important is the authentic encounter between the young people, the shared experience, learning and action. In this way, the young people can get to know each other, develop empathy for one another and make friends.

Focus of work

In addition to its role as a funding institution for a wide range of facilities and project topics, the German-Polish Youth Office has set up a number of funding programs that focus on specific topics or target groups.

Ways to remember

With the “Paths to Remembrance” program, the German-Polish Youth Office promotes German-Polish or trilateral projects that deal with the subject of National Socialism. The program enables joint projects at memorials or places of remembrance, but also the intensive examination of the topic of National Socialism as well as cooperation with specialized educational institutions.

Together we can go further. Now professionally

As part of the program, the German-Polish Youth Office supports cooperations between educational institutions as well as special schools, secondary schools and secondary schools. In the period from 2018 to 2020, the focus is primarily on professional orientation: young people can gain their first international experience at youth exchanges and do an internship in a neighboring country.  

Experiment exchange

The DPJW encourages students to make mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology (MINT) the topic of an international youth exchange through the “Experiment Exchange” program. The aim is for young people to gain a better understanding of the world of today through digital independence, research and discovery and to develop their own visions for the world of tomorrow.

Language in youth exchanges

Since understanding is a central concern of international youth encounters, the German-Polish Youth Office encourages the learning of suitable methods and games that make this easier. To this end, the DPJW regularly organizes advanced training courses on language animation ("Zip-Zap"), issues publications and trains language animation trainers.

Trilateral youth encounters

The German-Polish Youth Office primarily promotes binational encounters between young people from Germany and Poland. They make up 90% of the permits and take place in and out of school. In addition to these binational encounters, the DPJW also supports tri-national projects with countries such as the Ukraine , the Czech Republic , Belarus and France . Such encounters require a higher organizational, financial and communicative effort, and the intercultural group dynamics are also complex. Every collaboration between three partners has its own development process and character. So z. For example, in the case of projects with the Ukraine or other Eastern partner countries, Poland has been assigned an important role as an intermediary country. Of all the Eastern partner countries, the DPJW has been working with Ukraine the longest. Since the end of the 1990s - thanks in part to active Polish partners - there has been constant exchange with the country. Initially, trilateral projects with the countries of the Eastern Partnership were financed from the DPJW's own funds. Since 2014, the DPJW, now in cooperation with the German Foreign Office , has been promoting the expansion of cooperation with civil society in countries of the Eastern Partnership. The DPJW can support trilateral projects with the countries Armenia , Azerbaijan , Belarus, Georgia , Moldova , Ukraine and Russia , which take place in Germany or the third country, as well as programs to strengthen the partnership between the participating countries.

In promoting trilateral projects, the DPJW in Germany works with other bilateral funding institutions in the field of youth exchanges. These are the Franco-German Youth Office (DFJW), ConAct - Coordination Center for German-Israeli Youth Exchange, Tandem - Coordination Center for German-Czech Youth Exchange and the German-Russian Youth Exchange Foundation (DRJA). Wherever it is not just about trilateral exchange, but also about international youth work in general, the DPJW and the named partners get involved together with IJAB - Specialist Center for International Youth Work of the Federal Republic of Germany. V. as well as the German and Polish national agencies of the EU program “ Erasmus + YOUTH IN ACTION ” (in Poland this is the foundation for the development of the education system).

Main topics and German-Polish youth award

For a period of three years each, the German-Polish Youth Council decides on a thematic focus for the work of the German-Polish Youth Office, for which the DPJW offers special events. In addition, the German-Polish Youth Prize is being advertised on the topic, for which schools and extracurricular institutions can apply together with their project partner from the neighboring country. In the past few years there have been the following main topics and tenders:

  • Diversity (2017–2019) / Theme of the youth award: Together in Europe. A target.
  • Career prospects (2014–2016) / topic of the youth award: changes / chances @ work
  • Education for Sustainable Development (2011–2013) / Topic of the youth award: meeting point the day after tomorrow

Even before 2011, the German-Polish Youth Prize was awarded every three years, but it was not included in a thematic focus that encompassed the entire work of the DPJW. The youth award was advertised on the following topics:

  • Preserving memories (2008-2010)
  • Youth with responsibility (2005-2007)
  • Germans and Poles together in Europe (2002-2004)

facts and figures

The German-Polish Youth Office has a budget of 11.5 million euros (2019) available for its work. This is made up of funds from the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth, the Polish Ministry for National Education and third-party funds . In total, the German-Polish Youth Office has so far financially supported over 80,000 German-Polish or trilateral projects in which three million (as of October 2019) young people took part. In the past few years the DPJW has funded up to 2,500 projects with up to 100,000 young people each year. Young people from the federal states of Brandenburg , North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony as well as on the Polish side from the voivodships of Lower Silesia , Lesser Poland , West Pomerania and Lebuser Land are particularly well represented .

Cooperation partner

The German-Polish Youth Office works closely with so-called central offices (see “About the organization”). Further partners are institutions of German-Polish cooperation, funding institutions for international and bilateral youth work, as well as federal states, the euroregions, ministries, foundations, scientific institutions and companies. The German-Polish Youth Office is one of the co-founders of the "Exchange Makes School" initiative, which has been promoting the sustainable anchoring of youth exchanges in the German education system since 2013.

Awards

literature

  • Stephan Erb: A success story with an open ending. 20 years of German-Polish youth cooperation. In: Bingen / Loew / Ruchniewicz / Zybura (eds.): Adult neighborhood. German-Polish relations 1991 to 2010. (Publications of the German Poland Institute, vol. 29, 2011)
  • Agnieszka Łada (Ed.): Get to know your neighbors! Effect of German-Polish youth exchanges on the participants. Warsaw, 2014 ( online )
  • Saskia Herklotz, Piotr Kwiatkowski, Anke Papenbrock, Magdalena Zatylna: Global learning in German-Polish youth exchanges. In: German Association for Political Education NW e. V. (Ed.): Political Learning 3–4 I 2019, Duisburg
  • Contract for the German-Polish Youth Office
  • Saskia Herklotz, Michael Teffel, Magdalena Zatylna: International youth encounters for all young people. In: IJAB. (Ed.): Forum Jugendarbeit International 2016–2018, Bonn 2019
  • Martina E. Becker: Encounter - Exploration - Experience: Cultural-scientific perspectives on the German-Polish student exchange as a field of experience for teachers. Waxmann Verlag 2019

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ About the German-Polish Youth Office. In: dpjw.org. Retrieved October 22, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c Internal information from the German-Polish Youth Office from March 2019.
  3. ^ Team of the German-Polish Youth Office. In: dpjw.org. Retrieved October 22, 2019 .
  4. ^ German-Polish Youth Council. In: dpjw.org. Retrieved October 22, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Agreement on the German-Polish Youth Office, Art. 2, Paragraph 1.
  6. ↑ cf. Annual report of the German-Polish Youth Office 2018, p. 34.
  7. ↑ cf. DPJW partner. Retrieved June 17, 2019 .
  8. ↑ cf. Exchange makes school. Retrieved June 17, 2019 .