Bachelor of Being and MUT Academy
In the last months, I’ve had the chance of working with different groups of young people in Germany, supporting them on their ways from school to profession, through the maze of options, possibilities and apparent lack of possibilities, and overwhelm when faced with a high pressure to achieve while trying to find ways of dealing with the future that awaits us.
For one week in August, I joined 40 young adults for one of the Bachelor of Being (BoB) Summer Camps in central Germany, holding space and working with them as they explored who they are in this moment in the world, and where to focus their love, passion and talents going forward.
We created a beautiful community with lots of laughter, singing, arts, cuddles and time for meditating, dancing, reflection, and moving between comfort and learning zones when expanding their emotional and social competences with themes like the emotional compass (as developed by Vivian Dittmar) and knowing how to deal with triggers, exploring deep ecology and doing rituals from the Work that Reconnects (by Joana Macy), exploring their sense of self, envisioning their future direction and practically supporting each other through collective job coachings…
We shared a rich and deep week in beautiful nature and a cosy seminar house near Kassel and I am glad that the 5-month Bachelor of Being is taking place again from October 2022 until March 2023.
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My time with the MUT Academy (Mut = German for ‘courage’), as part of two of their MUT Camps in Worpswede near Bremen in October, was a very different one. While the BoB Camp had been made up of young adults coming from a rather white, privileged and green-activist bubble, the two MUT Camps were directed at youth coming mostly from migrant or refugee families, or more marginalised socio-economic backgrounds, in Hamburg.
During these two weeks, we supported two different groups of youth with their process of preparing for life after school - often without graduation and not many options, since they often fall through the German support system.
Some of group 1
While I had initially been a little intimidated (it had been a while since I worked with this target group), I quickly learned just how amazing these young people were. While pretty much all of them were carrying a quite intense load despite their young age, they quickly opened up to us and we enjoyed two very different, but wonderful weeks.
During the first week I was accompanying one group of 10 pupils through their workshops (focused on job application documents, job opportunities and paths forward, as well as character building and emotional intelligence), as well as running sports and evening programs together with the team.
It was a great and touching experience to accompany this group full of amazing and insightful young people - albeit we also had some charged and intense moments in our group dynamic since trauma and the potential of aggression sat close to the surface.
During the second week, I myself was holding the workshops on job application documents together with a colleague and enjoyed working with a whole new group of pupils who were eager and highly motivated to work on their papers and have a good time with us.
It was a gift to meet such inspiring young people, support them in their next steps, laugh and be silly with them, and see the unfolding of beauty and light in their beings as they were met with warmth, support and joy.
Group 2
I am filled with inspiration, motivation, hope and many joyful memories thanks to all these young people and great organisations.
If you would like to find out more about these two highly valuable projects, you can check out their websites:
https://bachelor-of-being.de/
