The Project
 
Walter Lange, teacher and freelance staff member of the Foundation, started the project “Good neighbours” at a comprehensive school in the Ruhr District of Germany, where it ran for a year in the 10th grade.

The goals of the project were:
• To bring together students from different cultural and religious communities (primarily Christians and Muslims) into dialogue;

• To resolve conflicts between parents and students (e.g. when Muslim girls are not allowed to participate in sport and swimming classes or to go on class excursions);

• To facilitate contacts between the parents.

Activities
 
• Visits to religious institutions: churches, monasteries, mosques, synagogues.

• Taking part in “days of religious orientation” sponsored by a monastery and by a youth educational centre.

• Discussions in religion class about similarities and differences between the different religions.

• Special project-days under the motto “meeting strangers”: visits to a youth prison, contacts with the homeless and with the handicapped.

Some typical exchanges
 
What is strange about others
 
Murat: “Naturally, I hold fast to my religious convictions. I am not going to let Christians tell me what to think. They adore Jesus on the cross although he really didn't die there.”
 
Christiana: “Shut up! You, with your funny ways of praying! What's that nonsense about having to spread out a carpet to kneel on, anyway?”

 

Islamic headscarf as a stigma?
 
Mr. Lange asked Aysel: “Have your classmates ever made snide remarks about your headscarf?”
 
Aysel: “I don't listen to them!”
 
Mr. Lange: “But what do you feel when others talk about you that way?”
 
Aysel: “I stick by my religion!”
 
Mr. Lange: “I ask you again, what do you feel, when they talk that way about you?”
 
Aysel: “Naturally, it bothers me.”

Mr. Lange: “I think it is very important that, in our religion groups, we talk openly about what bothers us in the behaviour of other religions and that, without false shame, we should stand up to the questions we have about the other religions.”

The results

The intensive, mutual exchange, including the discussion of controversial themes, helps to make each one more conscious of his or her own identity and to pass review about how one deals with others. In this way it is possible to clear up many prejudices and information gaps, not only among the students but also among their parents.