2017/2018 Fellow | Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten e. V. | Berlin
I was awarded the German Chancellor Fellowship in 2017, at a turning point in my career, having accumulated some years of research and leadership experience in the field of legal education in São Paulo, Brazil. Over those years, as threats to democracy in Brazil and other countries grew, I became more certain of the importance of civic and human rights education and the urgency of dialogue between academia and civil society organizations. Motivated by a previous stay in Germany as a law student, when I became acquainted with the country’s diverse and democratic civic landscape, I designed a research project with a practical approach, aiming to observe and participate in different environments of the German civic education landscape, register good practices and key issues, and intensify Brazilian-German dialogue in this field. My research focused on adult education, aligned with my belief in the importance of lifelong civic education in a world where social inequalities are omnipresent and ever-growing.
The Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten e. V. (AdB, Berlin office) kindly agreed to be my host institution for this research project and offered me the best support and academic freedom I could have asked for. I had the best of both worlds, researching in proximity to education practitioners, while having access to the most recent scholarship in the field. From an academic, political, and personal perspective, this was a life-changing experience that strengthened my belief in the power of dialogue. I was in constant exchange with education professionals all over Germany and at the AdB office in Berlin, learning about different approaches to civic education in Germany. I was also able to report my research to AdB and, with a critical perspective based on my experience in Brazil, contribute to further understanding the diversity of initiatives and approaches to civic education for adults in Germany. My report, written in German, was published in the journal Außerschulische Bildung (vol. 1/2019), edited by AdB.
Inspired by my BUKA year, I have joined the vibrant network of Latin American migrants in Berlin, where I now live, and have been working on the conception of a project for democracy education in migration society, in dialogue with Brazilian and other Latin American civil society actors. Also inspired by my fascination for German language and society, I will finish in the near future a Bachelor of Arts in German Studies (Deutsch) and Social Sciences at Humboldt University, which provides a solid academic basis for my work in civil society. I hope the German Chancellor Fellowship continues to inspire future leaders to work for global understanding and democracy.
(The photo was taken on June 21st, 2018 by Friedrun Erben, at an informal gathering for co-workers of the AdB Berlin office.)
