Civic Education
Ambassadors in Sneakers – A Young Leaders’ Transatlantic Summer Academy on Human Rights
Anna Steinbrich and Felix Weinmann
Ambassadors in Sneakers is a four-week educational program for 12 youth councilors (aged between 16 and 20) from Germany and the US. The program focuses on human rights, and against this back- ground participants learn about the political structures of both countries and transatlantic rela- tions. While traveling together in Germany and the US, the young participants find out about places and institutions that are of significance to the development and defense of human rights, and they compare different forms of youth participation.
During the program, participants meet activists, contem- porary witnesses, media representatives, and politicians to learn from and with each other and to bring their experiences and findings back to their own communi - ties. During visits to Georgia and Alabama, for example, participants in the first two exchanges in 2017 and 2018 took a close look at the American civil rights movement. In 2019, the Ambassadors in sneakers spent a week in Leipzig and Berlin, respectively, visiting Ann Arbor, Mich- igan, and Chicago, Illinois shortly after. Anna Steinbrich took part as the representative of the Vaihingen/Enz Youth Council. This is what she had to say about her experiences: Gaining a new perspective of our own history In Leipzig, the cultural exchange began even before Team USA had arrived. Team Germany consisted of four partic- ipants from Saxony and eight from Baden-Württemberg, some of whom, including myself, had never been to east- ern Germany before. Issues like population decline made
me realize that a piece of the Wall is somehow still stand- ing. And the way we stereotype “the East” brought home to me that the Wall still exists in some ways – above all in our minds. So initially, there were one or two prejudices. But essentially, the city isn’t that different – it’s just been shaped by its unique and sometimes tragic history.
The highlight of my visit to Leipzig was the “Runde Ecke” memorial museum. Formerly the Stasi headquarters,
the building has been a museum since 1990 and still contains the original furnish- ings and equip-
It made me realize how carelessly I treat my data online.
ment. This creates an authentic, almost unpleasant atmo- sphere, and it exhibits the methods employed by the Stasi in a striking way. It made me realize how carelessly I treat my data online. The tech companies, most of which are based in the US, might not be comparable with the Stasi, but the exhibition did make me aware of the power of data ownership.
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