Magazine

Engagement is systemically relevant, promotes social cohesion and thus democracy. Engagement changes as the world changes - digitization, global challenges and the post-growth society will continue to shape the engagement landscape in the future. New forms of engagement can already be identified. We have taken a closer look at this change and described it in an impulse paper. The special feature: We take a holistic perspective and look not only at much-discussed structures and processes, but above all at cultural aspects and the attitude with which those involved look at the world.

Valerie Karima Djurhuus is the executive director of Loom e.V. and one of the trainers there. The association works with the intersectionality approach. They do anti-discrimination work, working with young people and adults. Valerie counsels people who experience racism and gender-based discrimination experiences. In this interview, she talks about her volunteer work, her motivation and what she misses in Berlin's engagement landscape.

This year, Berlin held the title of "European Volunteering Capital/EVC". With this, the European Volunteering Center CEV in Brussels honored the more than 1.1 million Berliners who volunteer in our city. With a digital closing event on December 5, 2021 live from the Rotes Rathaus (with a total of 3,741 livestream views), we looked back on a successful year. The highlights of the campaign year and the people who made it possible were in the foreground.

How can volunteering be organised so that all people can actively participate in it? How can it be made attractive to a more diverse group of people? What framework conditions are necessary for this? What barriers and discriminatory structures exist and how can they be dismantled? This was the topic of the digital panel discussion on 2 December, the last discussion round of the EVC-Year.

It was not certain that it could take place. The pandemic situation set and still sets the pace. That made a lot of things difficult. It still does. Then came the relief: The European Festival of Neighbors of Berlin's neighborhood centers and neighborhood houses could take place in May. It was one of the highlights of the campaign year. That's why we're picking it up again here. Neighborhood culture is one of the many things that make Berlin and its people special. The Association for Social-Cultural Work (Verband für sozial-kulturelle Arbeit e.V.) put the festival into words for us briefly and succinctly.