Catholic University of North Rhine-Westphalia
A document
International project “Dreams” at the katho: Cologne students from the Hölderlin-Gymnasium and the Ferdinand-Lassalle-Realschule met during the autumn holidays at the university to discuss the topics of family, friendship, teamwork and society. The project was made possible through the close academic cooperation between Katho and CHRIST University in India.
Massive social and global political conflicts and crises strain young people, but they are often alone with their worries and fears: “The pressure to ‘pare’ and fulfill the roles of student or son/daughter too unobtrusively as possible, it is difficult to meet one’s own needs towards reference persons and teachers,” explains project manager Prof.in Dr.in Karla Verlinden. In the “Dreams” project, it’s different: for the second time during the autumn holidays, pupils from the Hölderlin-Gymnasium and the Ferdinand-Lassalle-Realschule (partner schools in Cologne-Mülheim), students and katho employees met for a week. long workshop of the Dreams project.
During the week, work on the themes of family, friendships, teamwork and society was as much on the program as creative phases of dance and drawing. These were moving questions: what is family to me? What is a friendship? What roles do I fulfill in society? How can I take care of it? Thanks to the great commitment of the students, it was possible to design a program for the students who picked them up where they are. “It was nice to see how the students open up to the students with their different subjects and how more and more trust is created,” says project coordinator Lisa Jungkamp. All participants left the second week of the workshop strengthened. A first workshop of the “Dreams” project had already taken place during the last Easter holidays.
Paving the way for young people to grow is the goal of the “Dreams” project at katho in Cologne: Interested sixth-graders have the opportunity to identify their talents and ideas during a three-week workshop as part of of the one-and-a-half-year project collecting on their personality. In particular, the resilience of young people should be strengthened.
The international and multi-generational project “Dreams” was made possible thanks to the close academic cooperation between katho and the CHRIST University of Bengaluru (India), where the psychologist Dr. Lijo Thomas developed “Dreams”. After the successful implementation of the idea in India and the United States, German schoolchildren are now following the approach of looking at their holistic development. “Dreams” means desire (To wish) – Preparation (Be ready) – accountability – Shares (Law) – mastery of success (success) and describes a cycle that builds on each other. “Dreams” focuses on three areas of life: personality development (first week of workshop), interpersonal relationships (second week of workshop) and the development and consolidation of what has been learned (third week workshop).
The project is led by Prof.in Dr.in Karla Verlinden and Lisa Jungkamp. The next and last week of the project is scheduled for the Easter holidays 2023.
International Perspectives on “Dreams”: www.letusdream.org
Contact:
Lisa Jungkamp
project coordinator
P: 0221 7757206
Über die Katholische Hochschule Nordrhein-Westfalen Die Katholische Hochschule Nordrhein-Westfalen (katho) ist mit über 5.300 Studierenden Deutschlands größte staatlich anerkannte Hochschule in kirchlicher Trägerschaft. Träger der 1971 gegründeten Hochschule sind die (Erz-)Bistümer Aachen, Köln, Münster, Paderborn und Osnabrück, refinanziert wird sie zum überwiegenden Teil vom Land. 126 hauptamtlich Lehrende und 249 Lehrbeauftragte unterrichten und forschen in Aachen, Köln, Münster und Paderborn in den Arbeitsgebieten Soziales, Gesundheit und Religionspädagogik. Deutschlandweit ist sie mit über 3.800 Studienplätzen die größte Anbieterin für den Studiengang Soziale Arbeit. Die katho ist renommiert in der Forschung von Pflege und Versorgung, Sucht und Suchtprävention, Gesundheit und Soziale Psychiatrie, Bildung und Diversity, Alter und Behinderung, Inklusion und Teilhabe, Netzwerkforschung in der Sozialen Arbeit sowie pastorale Praxisforschung. Die katho kooperiert mit internationalen Universitäten und Praxiseinrichtungen in 37 Ländern.
