Thirteen Participants from Germany and the Czech Republic have been invited to the common bordering Region to elaborate on relevant economic, political, and social issues related to this year’s topic Bridging the Gaps. They had a unique opportunity to meet with local actors and explore both cities, Chemnitz and Ústí nad Labem.
The seminar covered a wide range of current topics. It started on Thursday evening in Chemnitz with an opening round and a discussion with Alexander Beribes and Frank Harnack, Heads of offices of MP and Secretary General of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Saxony Alexander Dierks. The main topics were recent Regional Elections in Saxony and Czech-German relations.
Afterwards, CGYPP-participants explored the famous Brühl Boulevard with Holm Krieger, local artist, teacher and activist.
On the next day, CGYPP-participants met to discuss about the topic of tolerant and open society and about the Festival Kosmos Chemnitz with Lucia Schaub and Boris Kaiser from CWE Chemnitz. Guadalupe Peralta Ramos, a psychologist from Technical University Chemnitz also added her personal and professional views to the discussion.
This session was followed by a round about the Project Third Generation East with an exchange about East-West prejudices and teambuilding activity led by Henriette Stapf and Juliane Dietrich.
On Friday afternoon the participants traveled to Ústí nad Labem, where they met with local politician of the Green Party and social worker Petr Globočník to speak about the economic, environmental and social challenges of the border region and the integration of Roma minority.
Saturday morning was dedicated to a discussion round about the Innovation Potential in Ústí Region. CGYPP-Participants got a unique opportunity to meet with entrepreneur Martin Hausenblas, Milan Pátek from TU Dresden and Jakub Plojhar, director of the coworking space and innovation hub Central Node. Afterwards they visited a training of the football club and successful social inclusion project Mongaguá led by Lukáš Pulko.
In the afternoon the participants met to present the results of their individual projects. Over the past months each of them produced a podcast related to the topic of the year.
In the evening the CGYPP group explored the city centre of Ústí nad Labem with Tomáš Petrmann from the cultural centre Hraničář.
The whole seminar was concluded by an evaluation round and internal discussion on Sunday morning.
The program is initiated and financed by the Czech-German Fund for the Future.
Do not forget to check out pictures from the workshop:
