German-US-American Youth Exchanges – USA-Special 2022
Strengthening youth civic engagement in the USA and Germany An interview with Robert Fenstermacher about the German-American Sister Cities Youth Forum In 2021 the American Council on Germany brought together representatives of youth councils from five sister cities in Germany and the U. S.. The idea for this initiative came from the mayors of the cities themselves. In several online sessions and webinars, young people from Austin/Koblenz, Buffalo/Dortmund, San Antonio/Darmstadt, Charlotte/Krefeld and St. Louis/Stuttgart exchanged views on racism, climate change and youth participation. Project coordinator Robert Fenstermacher would like to see more of this in the future and tells IJAB about his experiences in the German- American Sister Cities Youth Forum .
In 2021 the German-American Sister Cities Youth Forum brought together young civic leaders from Germany and the US. What’s the idea of the project? The main purpose of the project was to bring together representatives from local youth councils and youth lea- dership programs in five pairs of U.S.-German sister cities to have a transatlantic dialogue about issues confronting their local communities. Our hope was not only to build greater mutual understanding and collaboration between the youth, but also to help strengthen the relationship and ties between the sister cities so that future exchan- ges can take place among the next generation in these communities.
Who initiated this youth exchange?
This exchange is a direct result of a series of 2020 Trans- atlantic Town Hall Meetings with German and American mayors in the same sister cities in which the mayors di- scussed how their cities have adapted due to the pande- mic and how their communities are rethinking plans for the future on issues like urban development and clima- te change, social equity and cohesion, and government engagement and communication with citizens. In each conversation, mayors specifically mentioned the need to engage more with youth in their communities on these issues, so the Youth Forum seemed like an obvious pro- ject to launch.
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