A more social society

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On good cooperation!

Where cultures meet, mediation and understanding are indispensable. Successful communication necessitates a knowledge of cultural backgrounds. To understand differences not as weakness, but as strength – this is the starting point of our work.

We offer

  • Trainings for schools, companies and health care facilities and administrations
  • International excursions for the social sector
  • Modules on the “Management of Diversity”.

Migration – an important issue for the future

Worldwide migration is a constant challenge for societies. The existing needs to be questioned, the new to be integrated. Laws, values, rituals and customs: We facilitate the overarching discussions about these topics and convey transcultural competences to those learning and teaching – in social work, healthcare and in youth work.

Dialogue with Turkey

For many years now IBB organises encounters and projects for German and Turkish professionals in youth and social work and in working with impaired persons. A high point of the work so far was the first German-Turkish conference „Dialogue with Turkey“ in 2011, which focused on the exchange about structures and methods of working and the development of project ideas for further cooperation.

Looking forward, German-Turkish social forums and exchanges of professionals in Turkey and Germany will continue to take place. They support international further education and the development of cooperations. To this, yearly exchange programmes for youths from Germany and Turkey are added, and networks are in place with partners from Istanbul, Trabzon and Mugla, among others.

Belarus support programme

The support programme is aimed at initiatives in Belarus civil society. It supports projects cooperatively conceptualised and realised by partners from Belarus and Germany.

The projects are oriented toward the focus points

  • Non-formal education
  • Health and social affairs
  • Environment and energy
  • Sustainable regional development.

In parallel to supporting projects, countrywide programmes for the networking of NGOs and for supporting the dialogue with the respective national authorities take place. The acceptance of NGOs increases, and the organisations are taken seriously as partners by the authorities.

The Belarus support programme exists since 2002 and is regularly evaluated by the „Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit“ (Society for International Cooperation). The IBB realises the programme on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

fokus – Further education for cultural sensibility in social services and health care

Migrants from many different cultural backgrounds are also clients, patients or employees in counselling services, hospitals, geriatric care and social organisations. Different religions, languages and cultures come together.

In this context specific questions or particular needs may arise, for which these organisations need to be prepared. With fokus, the IBB brings the following training opportunities to the forefront:

  • Sensitising one‘s own perception
  • Conveying culturally specific knowledge
  • Transferring strategies for workaday life
  • Strategies to open the organisations for transcultural work.

Migration and Inclusion - Inklud:Mi

Inklud:Mi was a project for including migrants with disabilities, impairments and mental health issues. Networking meetings in the Dortmund region and trainings regarding culture-sensitive approaches were organised.

The European Fund for Integration supported the one-year project phase (2014 to 2015).

DoKuMente – Qualification of volunteers

The project DoKuMente qualifies Dortmunders to become intercultural mentors. The qualification imparts a feeling of security in supporting the newly migrated and connects those interested and institutions within the city looking for supporters.

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

The Chernobyl Remebrance Center

In opening the world‘s first History Workshop Chernobyl in 2012, IBB started a project against forgetting and repressing the catastrophe. Today more than 25 000 of those affected by Chernobyl still live in Kharkiv, among them 12 000 of the more than 850 000 Liquidators, who between 1986 and 1989 worked on the destroyed reactor. The history workshop is a meeting point for Liquidators and a place of encounter where youths are told about the catastrophe.

Volunteers support the Liquidators and other victims of the catastrophe to assert their claims against the authorities. Also, sources and documents regarding Chernobyl are to be secured and the biographies of contemporary witnesses to be recorded.

Professional excursions

With our professional excursions we are overcoming boundaries: The focus is on professional and intercultural exchange, learning in dialogue is easier.

Our excursions are specifically targeted towards professionals in social services, in youth and family work, and towards those interested in social policy.