Sommerakademie der Werke 2023

From 27 August to 3 September, this year’s “Sommerakademie der Werke” took place in Schwerte-Villigst under the topic “The Value of Democracy”. Scholarship holders from all 13 scholarship foundations discussed issues relating to democratic participation, representation and European solidarity. The 2023 Summer Academy was organised by the four denominational scholarship foundations, under the auspices of the Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk and the Evangelisches Studienwerk. DialoguePerspectives was involved in the conception and implementation of several formats.

During the opening ceremony, Hannan Salamat, Vice Chair of DialoguePerspectives e.V., Prof. Frederek Musall, Chair of DialoguePerspectives e.V., and the sociologist Prof. Aladin El-Mafaalani discussed the topic “Diversity Society and Value Pluralism”.

On the occasion of an expert evening on the topic of diversity, CPPD members Hamze Bytyci (actor, director and educator), Anne Gerstorff (social worker and integration counsellor) and Dan Thy Nguyen (director, actor, singer and essayist), Dr. Kerstin Söderblom (theologian and supervisor and former religious accompanist at Dialogperspektiven) and Denis Gay (teacher and Dialogperspektiven alumnus), gave insights into their work and research and discussed different concepts and implications of plurality and diversity in different social fields and contexts.

At the beginning of the seminar days, the participants had the opportunity to give insights into their religious/worldview or spiritual practice in morning impulses – a format that was developed within the DialoguePerspectives programme and coordinated by our alumnus Semra Kızılkaya on the occasion of the Summer Academy. We are pleased that this important format of our seminar programme in the form of a Taizé devotion, a Qi-Gong unit and an introduction to Islamic meditation also became part of the Sommerakademie der Werke.

Pictures: Semra Kızılkaya