Haus am Maiberg, Center for Civic and Social Education

Haus am Maiberg is a centre for political and social education in the Diocese of Mainz, Heppenheim, Germany, that organizes and carries out seminars, conferences, workshops and international youth meetings that encourage active citizenship and openness to interpersonal dialogue with people of various origins, political affiliations, religions, and cultures. The facilitators of the centre work with non-formal education methods to promote self-reflection and interaction in order to address civic and social subjects and to strengthen skills these fields. Participants in youth meetings and adult education trainings are given the opportunity to shape and express their own opinion and are motivated and enabled to take an active part in political life. Haus am Maiberg has a long experience in non-formal education and is part of different national and international networks in the field of active citizenship education, taking part in approximately 70 educational projects annually, and has established partnerships in 8 European countries including France, Italy, Poland, and Russia. Since the beginning of the 1990’s, the centre is organizing national and international youth projects aiming to raise awareness regarding democracy and democratic values and increase the political participation of young people at local and European level . The centre is actively taking part in the network “Bundesausschuss für politische Bildung”, the network of institutions for citizenship education in Germany at federal level. The centre is also cooperating with different public agencies funding international youth work, namely the National Agency of the Youth in Action Programme in Germany (Jugend für Europa) and with the Deutsch-Polnische Jugendwerk (German-Polish Youth Agency). The International Youth Work department from Haus am Maiberg, coordinated by Stephan Schwieren, has developed educational concepts and organized several bi- and multinational youth projects (e.g. German-Polish, German-Russian, German-French, German-Bulgarian and multinational). Besides the youth projects, the International Youth Work Department has also developed trainings for multipliers for non-formal education. In these trainings the facilitators of the centre promote a diversity conscious approach in international youth work and address issues like power structures, discrimination and prejudices in society and daily life aiming to raise awareness regarding social problems and to develop a diversity conscious awareness, attitude and behaviour. The centre and its facilities spread over wide expanses of open space, green lawns and gardens, and it includes seminar and conference rooms, accommodation, respectively guest rooms and youth rooms, Youth Cellar and Wine Cellar, for the entertainment of participants and guests of the house, a library, dining room and a chapel.