Out of the Box Leaderexchange

Our partnership between Mathare Youth Film Festival (MYFF) and Partner*innen über Grenzen (PüG) is a South/North platform to connect and exchange on global issues through media and creative approaches among the youths.

In 2016, we organized the first youth encounter in Germany on the topic Flight and Migration. Till now we have done three additional successful in person youth encounters in Kenya and Germany working on the topics human rights, SDG 10 Reduce Inequalities and SDG 1 No Poverty. Additionally, during the covid pandemic in 2021, an exchange on SDG 13 Climate Change took place virtually. Additionally, MYFF and PüG organize an annual 3 weeks school exchange in cooperation with the Mekaela Academies and Gesamtschule Bremen Mitte. Furthermore, we enable young people from Kenya and Germany to participate in volunteering programs in the other country.

After six years of fruitful projects, we decided to reflect on our partnership in an expert encounter including eight participants from each organization. The first encounter already took place in Kenya from 08.04 - 18.04.22 where we got to know each other as partners more closely and reflected on the South/North context and the corresponding power structures. As a key aspect in the South/North context, we had a discussion on racism and also critically talked about the SDGs since the youth encounters are framed in close relation to them. Furthermore, we discussed our partnership values and reflected on the challenges we met in the encounters and the partnership. Through the encounter, we moved closer as a team and gained a high motivation for upcoming projects.

The second part of the expert encounter in Germany from 09.08 - 19.08.22 will focus on how our partnership and organizations can thrive in the future. Specifically, we want to plan for the next youth encounters in 2023/24.

Our expert encounter is mainly funded by the Kinder- und Jugendplan des Bundes (KJP), a program from the German ministry of family, pensioners, women and youth. But we are still facing a financial gap, and therefore need your financial support to bring our expert encounter to a successful end.

From the basic structure of the former youth encounters the cooperation partners derive two types of goals: the permanent and the topic related goals.

Topic related Goals in the Leader Exchange

1. Part of the Leader Exchange in April in Kenya

• Identifying the challenges: What were the challenges we have gone through? What was the source of the challenges? Were we happy about the decisions that were made? What did we wish to be different?
• Express issues, be listened to and listen to others.
• Find together a way of dealing with the issues and find solutions together.
• Overall points of reflection, mainly: Communication and power structures within the partnership and our projects.

2. Part of the Leader Exchange in August in Germany

• Are the ideas really working in this partnership & encounter?
• We bring the ideas and lessons learned into practical action.
• What are the roles? Of MYFF, PüG, teamers, Leaders.
• What are the mutual goals that can be set?
• Ideas for further Donors.

Permanent Goals of our Partnership

• support a critical perspective on racism
• reduce prejudice and support a diversity-conscious exchange
• learn from. other people
• support media-competence
• support the participation of people with a migration background
• learn about the globalworld and reflect own actions
• Sustainable partnership on the same eye-level

Because our 5 ground values for a sustainable partnership are also the fundament for the necessary change in our society:

Empathy
We should be mindful of how we communicate, have an understanding of eachother, and also the mutual feeling to share ideas, challenges and experiences.

Justice
Every person has unique privileges and opportunities based on their class, gender, race, abilities, age, religion and nationality. We are recognizing these personal and structural inequalities and support people to get to the same eye level.

Anti-Dominance
Being in a South/North Partnership, we reflect and discuss the different positions within the structures of power in a global world and how they are affected by different discriminations. This requires having a decolonial perspective and in our context a special focus on racism.

Integrity
All members of the partnership must be truthful to themselves and the team. They must also be trustworthy and accountable for themselves, each other, and the role they play in the organization.

Motivation
All members of the partnership should be passionate about the organization’s goals, be committed to their role and give the priority it deserves. They need to have the drive to accomplish the desired goals within the partnership.

With your contribution we can close our financial gap and successfully undertake our second part of our expert encounter in Bremen. You support us with co-financing the flight costs of the Kenyan group and with fee costs for the professional guidance for our reflection on our partnership. During the encounter the Kenyans will stay at the homes of the germans but we still need money to cover subsistence costs. Further costs are the public transport and entrance fees for the participants to exhibitions connected to our encounter. Your contribution support us to cover these costs.