“HeldenAkademie” (literally “HeroAcademy”) is a project of MediationsZentrum Berlin e.V. and was founded in 2016 by mediators working for the centre.
The workshops of HeldenAkademie aim to encourage young male adults to further develop their skills in solving conflicts in a non-violent way.
What are my own strengths, what skills do I already bring with me and how can I better utilise them? What are collective strengths and what do we have in common?
The current project pilot is limited to 2/3 young male refugees between 15 and 19 years of age whose mother tongue is Arabic and Dari/Farsi, meaning, from Syria/Arabic countries as well as Afghanistan /Iran. A third part consists of young adults from Berlin so that all those involved can then spread their refined intercultural sensitivity into their circles of friends and families.
The Gefühlsmonsters were used in preparation of the first workshops. Usually the cards are supposed to be used in the way that the person looking at the cards is also supposed to find his/her own words for the feeling depicted. In this particular case, however, the team used the cards as a basis to discuss vocabulary for the different feelings and to translate these words into both languages, Arabic (yellow) and Farsi/ Dari (green). Here is a little visual impression of the resulting “vocabulary list”:
A special thanks to Ms Müller and the dedicated staff from Mediationszentrum Berlin e.V. for their early feedback on this project.