Europabeauftragte Treptow-Köpenick

Projects

Youth festival United Games of Nations

What are the United Games (UG)?

United Games are an international youth exchange project. The main event is the youth festival which takes place once a year in the official UG-sister cities Izola (Slovenia), Olomouc (Czech Republic), Mürzzuschlag (Austria), Balatonfüzfö/Zirc (Hungary), Subotica (Serbia) and Treptow-Köpenick. In preparation of the festival, young people choose a socio-political topic they will debate in several workshops. The issues and the content of the past years reflect the European idea of a connected Europe: Breaking barriers in our minds (2000), For a culture of peace (2001), Media and Opinion making (2003), Chances of tolerance for a democratic co-operation (2004), Future city 2050 (2005), Youth participation for a tolerant society (2007), Communication - communicare: sharing, telling, participating, working together (2008).

Idea and targets
festival for peace and international understanding
contributing towards a united Europe
giving young people the chance meet new cultures
creating an atmosphere where prejudices can be reduced and tolerance and understanding can grow
promoting an open and democratic environment
imparting the values tolerance and understanding
sensitising for the linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe
increasing the idea of democracy

UG in Treptow-Koepenick

The United Games festival is a project of the Treptow-Köpenick Borough office (co-ordinated by the Mayor's Office, supported by the education and youth department), the youth centre FEZ Wuhlheide and the youth group "Young Voices". Several schools and youth clubs of our borough are important partners as well. Between 120 and 170 young people aged between 14 and 25 years, from approximately 12 countries take part in our annual event in the FEZ Wuhlheide.For an entire week young people work in multinational workshops with a specific socio-political issue. They visit different institutions, exchange experiences and opinions and then transfer their impressions to an artistic performance. The final performance is shown on the public summer festival "Köpenicker Sommer". Sports, sightseeing, and other multinational activities are all in the program.This project emphasizes communication beyond national borders, common experiences and multinational friendships.

Contact persons:

Borough Office: Sonja Eichmann (Tel.: 90297 2440, Email: sonja.eichmann@ba-tk.berlin.de)

FEZ Wuhlheide: Michael Kunsmann (Tel.: 5307 1298, Email: m.kunsmann@fez-berlin.de)

Further information can be found here

Young Voices Berlin: .......... http://www.youngvoices.net/yvger/
United Games International: http://www.unitedgames.org/


UG-Festival 2008



From June 9th to 15th, 2008, the United Games festival took place in Treptow-Köpenick with 120 participants from 13 different European countries. It was been the 18th UG festival in Treptow-Köpenick. We were happy to welcome people from our sister cities as well as people from Ukraine, Russia, England, Rumania, Northern Ireland and Poland. The common motto was “communication”. Within this issue, the participants worked in workshops titled intercultural communication, sign language, and language in sports and theatre


UG-Festival 2009



From June 8th to 14th 2009, the United Games festival took place in Treptow-Köpenick with 130 young people from 15 different European countries. We were happy to welcome people from our sister cities plus people from Ukraine, Russia, England, Rumania, Northern Ireland, Finland, Turkey and Poland. This year’s issue was cultural diversity. The participants worked within workshops concerning cultural diversity titled gender, religion, fashion and theatre.

The main targets were:
sensitization for social problems in modern culture
intercultural exchange of opinions
communication and language skills crossing cultural, national and social borders
sensitivity to new conflicts and problems
social responsibility and social engagement
understanding of culture diversity through the workshops

At the end of the week, the participants were able to reflect their impressions and express their experiences, fears and hopes through art. They created artistic performances such as small music pieces, dances or theatre plays which were performed in the popular summer festival "Köpenicker Sommer" After the presentation, the young people and the visitors of the festival released 800 balloons: 20 of them were yellow and symbolized the 20th anniversary of the "United Games festival." and together, the 800 balloons symbolized the 800th year anniversary of Treptow-Köpenick.



This festival was pretty successful and many good ideas for further projects with the partner organisations from different countries were generated.




(Fotos: Franziska Torke und Christian Bause)