German-US-American Youth Exchanges – USA-Special 2022
The experiences young people have during these exchanges are life-defining. After making transatlantic connections far away from home, they return with a different perception of themselves.
Our project partners in New York work with socially di- sadvantaged young people who have grown up in the underbelly of these great cities. They can tell us about what it’s like to have to assert themselves. Many of them have experienced latent racism and violence. Many have never left their own city, never mind their country. You have made it your explicit mission to give young people with "difficult biographies" the chance to cross the Atlantic. On your website, you call that "Fulbright for the streets". Why is this important to you? A whole range of opportunities to participate in internati- onal youth exchange projects are available to young peo- ple pursuing regular academic pathways. But what about those who don't have education on their radar? The ones who’ve made mistakes, who have maybe even served a prison sentence, and now want to be part of a society which they sometimes feel doesn’t want them? For 13 years now, we have been witnessing what can happen if you take young people out of their environments for a while and take them to a completely different country. They learn, they grow, they look at their own lives from a different perspective. They make international friends, and most important of all, they set themselves very dif- ferent, much bigger goals. In the new environment, they get a sense of achievement, and suddenly the world be- comes a whole lot smaller. Many of them stay in touch years after they leave the project. What does this kind of exchange mean to the young people and how do you prepare them for the exchange? The experiences young people have during these ex- changes are life-defining. After making transatlantic con - nections far away from home, they return with a diffe - rent perception of themselves. Many of them set the bar much higher. They set themselves far more ambitious goals. They say, “I just made it to New York/Berlin! Who knows where I’ll be going next!” In both Berlin and New York, young people are not always mobile in their own city. Many only know other neighborhoods from what they see on TV. Prejudices are formed by the media. To be able to take part in the project, participants have to attend briefing sessions in other parts of their city. In the following nine months, young people from all kinds of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, who would normally have nothing to do with each other, meet and
sit around a table together. Quite often, these meetings are just as important as the transatlantic encounters.
In the preparatory phase, we meet regularly to discuss the history of New York City and the US. Obviously, our main interest is Hip-Hop and the story of its develop- ment, which is closely connected to social injustice. The young people also have the opportunity to present their skills on stage in New York, so we rehearse a show to- gether. The videos we shoot in New York usually begin in Berlin. The young participants also set the rules and guidelines themselves and help put together the agenda.
What is the average age of your participants and how do they find out about the opportunity to go to the US?
As a street work organization in Berlin, we work with 14 to 27-year-olds, although the target group in this project tends to be between 18 and 24. The young people come to us through different channels. Many of them are al - ready involved in our other workshops. Others find out about us through the workshops we run in prison. So- metimes, we have to approach businesses or authorities, for example if potential participants are involved in em- ployment schemes. Others might contact us through ot- her Gangway street work teams. And of course, many of them hear about the project through friends or on social media. Street work originated in the US in the 1920s. Today, Gangway e. V. carries out street work in Berlin. Look - ing at your partners in the US, what are the differenc - es between the kinds of social work that is done in the two cities? What can you learn from each other? We operate under completely different conditions. Alt - hough we can no longer say that all young people are covered by a "social safety net" even in Germany, it does exist, and most young people here can benefit from it. Unfortunately, young people in New York rarely bene- fit from a safety net of this kind. Many of them come from really tough backgrounds and are often left to fend
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