The Association "Agency for Historical, Civic and Media Education"

The registered association “Agentur für Bildung, Geschichte und Politik e.V.” (Agency for Historical, Civic and Political Education) aims to promote historical and civic education and to carry out projects in cooperation with other bodies or on its own initiative. As well as the web portal, we are currently working on the following projects:

Quality standards for educational portals

Together with our cooperation partners Karta in Poland and Memorial in Russia, we have drawn up a set of quality standards for educational web portals. This pdf document (in English) describes all the basic principles that we consider crucial in developing educational web portals.

Jury member for the German-Polish Youth Office’s prize

The jury for the triennial German-Polish Youth Prize is made up of German and Polish historians, journalists, members of the German and Polish parliaments, the directors of the German-Polish Youth Office (Deutsch-Polnisches Jugendwerk), and representatives of the relevant government departments and of the German-Polish Youth Council. “Learning from History” was a member of the jury for the 2009 competition, “Preserving memory – Zachować pamięć”.

The German-Polish Youth Office was established in 1991 by the governments of Germany and Poland, and is funded by them. The Office promotes exchanges between young people from the two countries and organises training courses, conferences and continuing professional education.

Adviser for the initiative to make Szczecin the European Capital of Culture 2016

The city of Szczecin – just 130 km from Berlin – wishes to apply to become the 2016 European Capital of Culture. The application is to include ideas and opportunities for historical and civic education with a German-Polish theme. The registered association “Learning from History”, along with the German Historical Museum and the organisation of national museums in Berlin, is advising the initiative. More information on the initiative.

“Inclusion as a human right: A handbook for pedagogical practice” (in German)

The project is supported by the “Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte” (German Institute for Human Rights). In recent years, the concept of inclusion has become more and more prominent in the educational debate and on the level of international protection for human rights. It brings with it a fundamental change to our perspectives on implementing the human right to education.

The goal of the “Inclusion as a human right” project is to create a practical handbook for educators, offering them new ideas and methodologies that can contribute to an inclusive educational practice. Contemporary and historical examples from many spheres of life will be used to give tangible shape to the history, scope and impact of experiences of injustice, as well as to the successes of social movements like the campaign for disabled people’s rights. The handbook will also look at interfaces with other key human-rights topics such as women’s rights and children’s rights.

You can find more information on the project at the website of the Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte. (English website).

Documentation for the seminar series “Discovering and Understanding”

The foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (“Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft”) has been offering a series of seminars at various dates and locations in 2009 and 2010, on the theme of educational work with testimonies of the victims of National Socialism. “Learning from History” has documented the series for the foundation, using audio interviews and seminar reports.

Displaced Persons Camp Project

This project is led by the Lutheran parish of Schlachtensee, Berlin. The participants, young people attending non-school activities, are researching the history of the Displaced Persons Camps that were set up in Berlin after the Second World War. The youngsters have documented their interviews and workshops in a weblog, www.dpcamp.de (in German).