People with refugee status are often excluded from equal participation in education due to legal restrictions and inflexible structures in educational institutions. Educational qualifications brought with them from their home countries are not recognized and uncertain residence statuses make access to knowledge and education impossible, especially if the language skills of the host country are still insufficient. In 2012, the Kurdish artist Ahmet Ögüt, who is also involved in “Dejima. Concepts for Inclusion and Exclusion”, initiated Silent University as an autonomous knowledge platform, designed by refugee academics from various fields of knowledge, who regularly present their knowledge to an interested public in the form of lectures and seminars. Teachers also critically reflect on hierarchies in conventional educational institutions, which are abolished in Silent University. The inclusion of teaching and learning refugees with their life-world experience and knowledge in all educational institutions opens up new learning fields and discussion processes.
Kirsten Ben Haddou: Certified pedagogue of intercultural education with focus on adult education. She has worked in various fields of flight and migration, a.o. from 2008 to 2013 at the refugee and human rights organisation Medizinische Flüchtlingshilfe Bochum. She works as a freelance coach and consultant and as a consultant for intercultural competence and migration. Since 2015 she coordinates the Silent University Ruhr.
Lecture to the exhibition “Dejima. Concepts of inclusion and exclusion”.