Extracurricular Cultural Youth Education
Section 11 subs. 3 of the Child and Youth Services Act refers to cultural education as a priority of youth work, which underlines the federal responsibility for this sector. The Child and Youth Plan of the Federation has ensured basic funding of 30 specialist organisations and umbrella associations in the fields of media, literature, music, games, theatre, dance, applied arts and further education.
The work of the national associations and organisations is of special national interest. By developing concepts and realising model projects, research projects, competitions, federal events, international measures and further education schemes, they perform the Federal Government’s function of providing encouragement and a framework, ensure further development of cultural education, address important issues on top of the youth policy agenda and promote the cultural involvement of children and young people in municipal processes through counselling, information and documentation.
The Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth as created a new option for more cultural involvement of young people called Voluntary Cultural Service Year (Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr Kultur), which has already become a success. It is a special form of social engagement in cultural institutions such as philharmonic concert halls, theatres, local radios, socio-cultural centres and music schools.
Moreover, the Federal Ministry is testing a model for voluntary cultural service open to all generations in co-operation with the German Federation for Cultural Youth Education (Bundesvereinigung Kulturelle Kinder- und Jugendbildung, BKJ). The objective is to establish future-oriented, flexible formats of voluntary commitment in Germany’s cultural scene.
Cultural diversity is created by artistic and cultural expressions of people with different regional or national, religious and in particular artistic and aesthetic views. It is based on fundamental values derived from basic constitutional rights which also serve as a framework for artistic freedom. Understanding these common fundamental values is the prerequisite for a broad adoption, acceptance and/or tolerance of all services and benefits which are summarised under the term cultural diversity.
