On 19th January the Dialog UNEXPECTED started with a discussion on the topic “How can we improve the opportunities of young students and refugees in Bremen?“. Bremer Jugendring and the “Guineischer Verein für Bildung und Integration” – a self-organized association of young people that moved from Guinea to Bremen – prepared the event together and invited several politicians of Bremer Bürgerschaft, a journalist from Weser Kurier, the commissioner for integration from the police in Bremen and the head of division for official guardianship (Amtsvormundschaft). Daniel de Olano, political scientist, moderated the discussion.

Discussion topics reached from th experiences of stigmatisation and discrimination in the everyday life of young people, the critic of one-sided media reporting to the question how one can better present the many very positive examples of “integration” in the public and how journalists can write more sensibly and differentiated about the problems of refugees.

Especially the manifold questions and statements of the many young guests made clear that active participation of young people with their various backgrounds in society and in defining what “integration” can be, should more often be publicly acknowledged. For sure these kind of dialogs are an important step towards more recognition.

Happily, the end of the event did not mean the end of the discussion. Instead, the police invited the members of “Guineischer Verein” to a conference about “racial profiling”, Sofia Leonidakis (from the party “Die Linke”) offered an on-site consultion session concerning difficulties with residence permits and the invited reporter arranged a meeting with the young organizers in the editorial office of Weser Kurier to produce a more in-depth article together.

The dialog goes on and on!