Project info
Operator: Volunteer Agency Halle-Saalkreis e.V.
founded in 1999
The Volunteer Agency has been supporting the “Jewish Halle” group since 2021 as part of the project “freistil – Jugend engagiert sich in Sachsen-Anhalt”.
Volunteer agency: 34 full-time employees, approx. 300 volunteers
Group “Jewish Halle”: 10 volunteers between 16 and 26 years of age
Contact persons:
Christine Sattler, management of the volunteer agency
Lina Wunderlich, project management
Location: Various locations in the city of Halle (Saale), Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Project: Actionbound tour (revision and expansion), development of workshops for school classes, etc.
Our funding:
Contribution to the costs of this project in the amount of 5000 € for the next three years.
Funding period: 2023 to 2025
October 2021, in the middle of the anniversary year “1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany”, marked the second anniversary of the anti-Semitic attack on the synagogue in Halle. The Volunteer Agency Halle used the anniversary year as an opportunity to make a contribution to more education and tolerance as well as against anti-Semitism. For this purpose, it was looking for young volunteers who wanted to become active in their city against anti-Semitism.
The result was a group of 10 pupils and students who set themselves the goal of learning more about Jewish life in their hometown and sharing this knowledge with other people using modern and low-threshold methods.
For this project, the young people were awarded the Honorary Award for Jewish Life by the Federal Commissioner for Combating Anti-Semitism, Dr. Felix Klein, which was presented for the first time in 2022.
The project operator
The Freiwilligen-Agentur Halle-Saalkreis e.V. is a non-profit association and a recognized youth welfare organization. Its goal is to provide comprehensive and sustainable support for volunteering in the Halle region and throughout Saxony-Anhalt.
The Volunteer Agency is committed to creating a successful framework for volunteer work at all ages, at the interface between individuals, non-profit organizations, politics, administration and business. In the area of youth engagement, the volunteer agency is active with various projects and for different target groups, with a broad-based interdisciplinary team.
In the “freistil – Jugend engagiert in Sachsen-Anhalt” project, the “Jewish Halle” group has been accompanied by the volunteer agency since 2021 on its mission to provide Halle residents with knowledge about Jewish history and the present, to break down prejudices, and to create occasions for dialog and exchange.
Actionbound-Tour „Jewish Halle“: Digital education for more tolerance
The medium used to realize the project is the free “Actionbound” app selected by the young people, which can be used to create “mobile adventures” such as interactive tours and digital rallies. It took more than half a year to complete the first Actionbound tour: It takes users right across the city and covers different eras in which Jewish life from the Middle Ages to the present day becomes visible.
The tour provides information about religious aspects, such as the course of a service or different orientations of Judaism, talks about today’s Jewish community in the city and gives a voice to the young artist who turned the saving door into a memorial after the 2019 attack.
Video about the project and the project group: kurzelinks.de/juedischeshalle
In June 2023, another Actionbound city tour was published, in which the young people tell biographical stories of former Jewish residents of Halle. New flyers were created for this and a presentation was organized for the public. Guided city tours and workshops are now also offered and held at schools.
Furthermore, the existing tour is being revised for a younger target group and translated into simple language and foreign languages.
We want to educate interested people through direct encounters and concrete information so that prejudices, conspiracy ideologies and hatred don’t stand a chance. In this way, social togetherness is strengthened in the long term, so that we can live together in Halle without fear and with pleasure. We would also very much like to be a role model for others.
The young people involved in the “Jewish Halle” group
Why we are committed to the project
We were convinced by the voluntary commitment of the young people to tolerant and peaceful coexistence. Using modern, easily understandable means, they have made a great contribution to understanding religious aspects of Judaism and Jewish life in Halle in the past and present. They have met with great interest and are expanding their activities accordingly.
We greatly appreciate their efforts, especially because of the still widespread anti-Semitism in Germany.
Outlook
We are very happy to support this project for the next three years and wish the “Jewish Halle” group continued interest in this topic and more young people who would like to join them in the “Jewish Halle”.
