World stories on the net

The Intercultural Week starts on the next Sunday across Germany. Würzburg is there with a new format, with the “Reading trip to stories from all over the world”. 16 people from all parts of the world except Australia read stories that mean something special to them personally. A few participants even wrote their own texts. Everyone speaks on video on the Internet: From September 27th to October 4th, two new world stories will be unlocked every day.

In order to understand a story, one does not necessarily have to see the associated reading face. Maybe a photo is enough. But not enough for an intercultural reading tour! One would like to see the committed Freddy Mercury fan. The history of the pan flute also lives from the narrator taking out the instrument and playing it. Not to mention the crash course in the meaning and meaning of Amazon drums. Fortunately, some of them were also at hand on the Main.

The last examples confirm: “Many South Americans are very interested in us understanding their culture,” says Heike Mix, who coordinated the campaign. In practice, that meant: In a week in August, the clips were shown in the ?? empty due to vacation? Jugendkulturhaus Cairo recorded. It was a full-time job for the organizers, especially for the cameraman Jürgen Schultheiß, who usually gives film workshops in Cairo. Mix understood her role as a loosening assistant: “I said to the participants: It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake, we can always go back and cut that later.” The social pedagogue, well-known chansonist and cabaret artist, said that all participants were highly motivated.

The threads have come together with her since the founding idea. This sparked off in the women’s working group, in which employees of the Würzburg social department regularly exchange ideas about what’s going on and where commitment is required. In spring the topic was: What are we going to do in autumn for the intercultural week? There was quick agreement: “We’ll do something really beautiful and easy, nothing directly political.” So the idea of ​​storytelling came up: each reader should briefly explain what makes his or her story so important for him or her personally.

The further development also took place via a communal facility: via the Heidingsfeld Reuter House, according to Mix “the city’s social house, the place for women’s groups”. As a representative for intercultural women’s work, she works a lot here anyway, where the women’s groups have sorted themselves according to a natural dynamic according to regions of origin.

From Sunday at the latest, however, they will come together online: storytellers from South America, Ukraine, Egypt and Africa, China, France and Germany, even Swabia: A native of Southwest Germany reports on her integration difficulties in Lower Franconia. Other German readers are Lord Mayor Christian Schuchhardt and Social Affairs Officer Hülya Düber: www.wuerzburger-interkulturelle-lesezeit.de.