ButIsItPolitics

Text and Pic from url http://www.lot.at/politics/contributions/kath1.htm
from [ButIsItPolitics]. By Katharina Lenz/ WochenKlausur.

Representatives of organizations of unemployed in Kunstamt Kreuzberg

Art and Concrete Intervention Intervention Concerning (Un)employment
- Kunstamt Kreuzberg and NGBK, Berlin,Germany - 1998

      
For this project, WochenKlausur decided to focus upon the question of 
      unemployment respectively job creation as one of the most urgent fields of 
      the ongoing political and economic debates - worldwide and also locally in 
      Berlin as the growing new capital of re-united Germany. Kreuzberg is the 
      Berlin district with the highest rate of unemployment, the highest figures 
      when it comes to immigrants, mirrored in the media as a place of social 
      decay, inspite of a strong tradition of integrative initiatives and a 
      dense structure of welfare facilities. 
      
Facing these facts, WochenKlausur elaborated a concept aiming at a 
      close connection between the actual situation of unemployed people and 
      their very individual needs on one hand and the development of new 
      perspectives or working fields on the other. Consequently, the so called 
      Workstation consists of two parts:
      
1. Info-Tank - a meeting space of advisement and assistance for the 
      local unemployed, to be built up at least in German and Turkish language 
      to start with, due to the social and ethnical structure of the area; 
      
2. Think-Tank - a model thought to bring together highly motivated and 
      engaged professionals from different kinds of backgrounds, ready to face 
      the challenge of developing consistent and practicable examples of new 
      fields of employment. The idea is to form groups of five or six for each 
      new case. At the first meeting, the participants agree upon the specific 
      goal and a time schedule. For the starting group, WochenKlausur will 
      invite the first interested participants. For the long-term assistance of 
      the Think-Tank, a co-ordination team will be in charge of inviting further 
      groups. The co-ordinators keep in constant close contact with existing 
      initiatives and institutions, as well as with the public administration 
      area and representatives of commercial enterprises, in order to define 
      possible intervention fields. Adequate public relations and documentation 
      of the outcoming results are also part of their responsibilities. 
      
The implementation of the Workstation itself already implies the 
      creation of four new jobs: two for the Info-Tank and further two for the 
      Think-Tank co-ordinators. As an experimental model focussed upon local 
      needs and potentials, it could be a small, but very concrete example for 
      the creation of new forms of subsistance. 
      
Participants: Pascale Jeannee, Katharina Lenz, Christian Rupp, Michaela 
      Schweiger, Paul Stefanowske, Malte Willms, Andreas Zinggl 

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