Diversity & Participation

Germany – France – Turkey

The project

Turkey has become a centre for refugees and immigrants between Asia and Europe, between poverty and wealth, between emigration and immigration countries. Turkey has also neighbors states that are in political and economic turmoil and marred with violence and conflict. It is a country that has become a hub for refugee and migration flows, many of whom want to go to Europe. When not possible, they stay in Turkey and try to build a new life here. 

Social work should play an important role in this field and address these target groups in particular. However, legally speaking, social workers in Turkey hardly play any role in the field of asylum and migration. It is an aberration for this essential professional sector not to have a significant place there. In this sense, international contacts and the sharing of experiences are of great importance to understand how social work is legally anchored in other countries and what theoretical and practical concepts they have developed. 

This is especially important in cities like Diyarbakir that have become key stations for refugees. It also the case in cities like Berlin or Marseille where social work has had to adapt to incoming refugees in recent years. Social workers often face great challenges with the transformations of the social field and immigration policies. In most cases, authorities have not made any additional financial resources available to a social sector that urgently needs them.

By means of intercultural exercises we want to train the participants to become empathetically and professionally involved in this process. In the framework of this project the group should be able to visualize the different social realities of Berlin, Diyarbakir and Marseille. For this purpose, we will organise visits in small groups in selected social centres in each city. We will also visit various social projects and give the participants the opportunity to exchange ideas with local actors on site. 

Furthermore, in the first phase of the project, we started to work with the participants on a collaborative publication compiling different pedagogical methods addressing diversity (linguistic / cultural / physical) in different target groups and intended for use in social work and non-formal education. The exchange weeks in Berlin and Marseille will serve to complete this compilation and to work on the development of a website as support for the publication of this methodological catalog.

Diversity approach

The idea of this training cycle is to introduce the participants to the “Diversity” approach and to teach other intercultural methods. “Diversity” aims to recognise the heterogeneity of identities, but also to understand the questions of power and dependencies that are linked to it. This tolerance and awareness are important, especially when working with increasingly heterogeneous target groups. Participants should learn to recognise resources in otherness, to deal with differences and to find common ground. It is also about recognizing intercultural processes and being able to involve oneself actively and professionally. This includes, for example, the ability to change perspectives, to have an own attitude and to valorise diversity. 

Dates and places

Phase I:Diyarbakir – from 21/04/2019 to 28/04/2019 
Phase II:Berlin – from 06/10/2019 to 13/11/2019 
Phase III:Marseille – Summer 2020

The participants

9 participants from each partner country will be present at this seminar. Although these may be different profiles, the majority of the group will work in the social field on a full-time or voluntary basis and will have experience in working with socially disadvantaged children, youths and their families. The three national groups will be diverse in terms of cultural and ethnic origin, age and gender.