Brief project description For the partner organisations, the aim of “Silence is no longer here, because of us” was to contribute to the pre- vention of racism and antisemitism in young people, pro- mote young people’s commitment to remembrance and memorial work, and help boost their media literacy. As they are also cooperation partners in the Internationale Jugendarbeit.digital (IJA.digital) research project, 13 IJAB in - vited the Greek and German organisations to experiment with new youth exchange formats and to find appropri- ate digital means for achieving their educational goals. To help cover the additional expense of delivering digital/ hybrid solutions, the partners were able to use technical appliances/equipment and/or software provided by IJAB. Based on the research project, the project investigated what options a digital setting provides for participants to be involved in shaping a project and whether digital means can also be used to reach young people who have no obvious link to international exchanges. The project partners’ content-related goals were » to enable a critical, creative examination of the part- ner countries’ shared history, » to provide the opportunity to take a critical look at the respective places of remembrance both in person and in a digital setting, » to facilitate creative collaboration and improve the young participants’ media literacy by having them work together to produce podcasts and slam poetry, engage in creative writing and learn printing technology.
IJAB, the project team and research partners held month- ly reflection meetings throughout the project term. JFF – Institute for Media Research and Media Education ap- plied the participatory observation method to support the hybrid and on-site sessions, held interviews with experts and participants, and led a group discussion with the young people from Greece and Germany. Setting and methodology In the period between March and May 2022 the groups got to know each other in a digital setting and worked together to find ways to approach historical topics and the places of remembrance in Greece and Germany. The participants used a hybrid setting: in Greece, they were all in a seminar room on the premises of the Prophet Elias Cultural Society, while the participants in Germa- ny logged in to Zoom individually on their own devices. IJAB gave the Cultural Society a laptop, a projector and a room microphone to use in this setting. The partner organisations chose English as the language of communication in the digital sessions, as participants had sufficient command of English and direct communi- cation was felt to be more effective than interpretation. The team leaders provided support whenever partici- pants had difficulty understanding each other, or even translated what was said where necessary. In the Ger- man group there was also one participant who spoke both Greek and German and who provided language support where necessary. Digital exchange, February 2022 5 hours with one break The young people’s first digital exchange was a chance for them to get to know each other, to talk about the goals and content of the project and to familiarise themselves with remembrance and memorial work. For the getting- to-know-you phase, participants were sent into break- out sessions for a kind of speed dating and were asked to answer questions such as “What kind of music do you like listening to?” The questions were geared to the young people’s lifeworlds and offered them an introduction to the project content. Also, Lechovo and Ravensbrück were presented as places of remembrance. Providing informa- tion about places where people were brutally murdered helped prepare the young people and prevented them from being overwhelmed once they later visited the ac- tual sites. To facilitate work in the breakout sessions, the partici- pants in Greece were asked to use their own mobile de- vices.
13 For more information on the research project, go to https://ijab.de/en/projects/internationale-jugendarbeitdigital.
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