All of us at CNA were excited to receive an invitation from the German organisation Gegen Vergessen / Für Demokratie e.V. (Against Forgetting – For Democracy) to visit them, get to know each other, exchange experiences and think about possibilities for future cooperation, so we planned the trip for the second half of April (18-23. 04. 2015.).
The first contacts with representatives of this organisation were made last year during the Mandela Dialogues programme, and we kept in touch wanting to get to know each other better and see what we have in common and how we could support each other and cooperate in the future.
These were the broad aims of the two-day meeting in Berlin that brought together five representatives of CNA and six representatives of GVFD, but we agreed from the start that we would focus not on aims, but on the process of getting to know each other better.
At the meeting, we first exchanged information about the histories of our two organisations, their missions and development plans, with lots of questions from both sides. It was very interesting to talk about what we considered our greatest successes and failures, what our dreams were and what challenges we were facing. The readiness to be self-critical, as a precondition for defining lessons learned and learning from experience, created an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect.
In this relaxed, friendly atmosphere, the workshop came up with many open-ended questions and a desire for deeper understanding on both sides. We from the CNA were particularly interested in the work of GVFD with right-wing extremists and the methods they employ, especially in the online counselling programme against extremism.
On their part, GVFD were curious about our methods of work at peacebuilding trainings, so we presented one of our more frequent training workshops and the various aspects of our work with war-veterans.
We felt a connection in terms of values and a desire for further cooperation. However, given that neither organisation is interested in superficial cooperation aimed only at fulfilling donor requirements or providing a false image, a concrete joint project will have to wait a while because we need to think further about how best to improve the work of each organisation through a joint endeavour.
We used this visit to Berlin to meet with a host of other friends and associates of CNA to discuss future cooperation as well as numerous issues at the core of peace activism throughout the world: the war in Yemen, the activities of Pegida in Germany, protests against extremisms and xenophobia, migrants from war zones and ways to help these people… The exchange of thoughts and apprehensions we share was strangely empowering because we don’t often have an opportunity to talk about where the world is going in the societies where we work, and to consider these processes from various angles.
K.M.