Young People Discover The Potential Inside Them.
The curtain is raised. Light on! Rashid, 23, from Iran, enters the room and, beaming with joy, presents the designer object he has invented to his family, friends and acquaintances who have gathered here. It is a speaker made from a truncated glass bottle shaped into a horn as the output and a piece of copper pipe with a hole as the pickup. Dock your smartphone, put your music on and enjoy. Steve Jobs, eat your heart out.
Rashid is one of around 250 teenagers and young adults, who in the last eight years have passed through our Bildungsmanufaktur (‚education factory‘). They have included pupils from all types of schools in the school system. People with or without a migration background. Young people bursting with energy alongside those who don’t know what their next move is.
They all come here over a period of several months to meet each other and, with the help of experienced artists, craftspeople and designers, come up with design ideas and then actually make them. The formal term for it is ‚vocational guidance‘. We prefer to call it a personal journey of discovery. And by the end of it everyone knows what’s hidden inside them. And that’s what counts.