Junify Democracy Festival 2023

Almost two years have passed since some students of the International Gymnasium Meerane, together with their teachers, initiated the project "Democracy - Past and Present", which is not only of great importance for us as participants, but has also caused a sensation and recognition in the media. In addition to the short feature of the Sachsenspiegel on MDR and the broadcast of the project on the radio, we also participated in the nationwide competition "Democratic Action", where we were able to convince the jury. Despite the high number of applicants of over 260 projects as well as 14000 participants, we were among the winners.
As such, we had the honor of participating in the Junify Democracy Festival in Berlin from 07.06. - 09.06.2023. Of course, we did not want to miss this chance. Representing the entire team, two members of the project traveled to the state capital last Wednesday, accompanied by Mr. M. Fehre and Ms. M. Lorenz, who also provided us with active support throughout the project. Arriving there, we first got to know the participants of the other projects in the cultural center "Weiße Rose", which served as the location for the event, before we went on a city tour through the Berlin district Mitte in the evening. On Thursday we went into the workshop phase. There we could become active ourselves, share our opinions and of course take note of the views of the other participants. The results of the workshops were presented the following day in the "White Rose".
In addition to the exciting program points and the varied activities in the evening, during which we not only admired the show of the traveling circus Cabuwazi, but were also able to experience the vice world champion in beatboxing, Mando, live, we naturally also had free time, which we used to explore the city and to purchase one or two souvenirs. The highlight of the event was the award ceremony on the evening of the second day, which was also broadcast live on YouTube.
Happy, but also exhausted from the exciting experiences of the past days, we started our journey home on June 9. The participation in the Junify Democracy Festival was a lot of fun for all of us and also gave us an insight into other projects, schools and also cultures. We are very grateful to have had this experience and proud that this project not only has a great value for us, but also that we could reach so many other people with it.