Movies

As part of the “Style your Rights – it’s your partycipation” project, a rap workshop focusing on children’s rights took place during the Easter holidays of 2021. Held at the premises of the Comprehensive School on Stettiner Straße in Düsseldorf Garath, 12 children had the chance to express themselves creatively and artistically. These kids penned their own song lyrics, which were professionally recorded by workshop leader Jason Firchow, also known as JayJay. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and hygiene regulations, the children couldn’t record and publicly perform the song themselves. However, a concert is hopefully in the works to make up for it.

These workshops marked the initial stages of the “Style your Rights” project, which ran until the end of the year. Many more art and cultural activities are on the horizon.

A project by Krass e.V.
Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the German Children’s Fund, and the Alliance “Culture Creates Strong Kids”
In cooperation with Jumpers Düsseldorf and the Comprehensive School Stettiner Straße.

www.krass-ev.de
www.kinderrechte.de/kulturmachtstark

Interpret: JayJay feat. Alina Adam
Beat produziert von: Diamond Style

This is the closing video of the “HipHop Workshop” project by KRASS e.V. For over 3 months, kids and teens aged between 12 and 13 have been part of this art project. Under the guidance of the KRASS art instructor, Jason Firchow, the participants independently crafted song lyrics and delved into the topic of Corona. The song was diligently rehearsed, memorized, and recorded in a professional mobile recording studio. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it wasn’t possible to perform the song in front of an audience. Therefore, the participants went the extra mile to produce a video to rap their message to the world. This project was carried out in collaboration with our partner school, the Comprehensive School Stettiner Straße in Düsseldorf-Garath. The project was funded by the LVR (Rhineland Regional Council).

KRASS e.V. is spreading culture, education, and attention to children and teenagers all around the world!

Education is the key to social inclusion and personal opportunities in our society. Through cultural projects, KRASS e.V. particularly supports socioeconomically disadvantaged children and teenagers at various stages of their journey.

Our commitment to cultural education!

We advocate for all young individuals – regardless of background – to achieve success on their educational path. We serve as liaisons and connectors for those interested in cultural education. We assist educational and youth leisure facilities as well as parents in their educational tasks, focusing on educational goals together. We’re extremely flexible and open to new project approaches, letting our creativity flow to provide support where it’s needed. We combine our competencies, creativity, experiences, and qualifications, offering them free of charge to promote cultural education.

This is what we do for all children and teenagers.
For our future.

Marcel Uhl’s project work with children and teenagers teaches “Spinnen,” as he puts it. And of course, this is meant in a positive sense!

In his hands-on youth work, the main focus is on fostering self-motivation. Within the various, sometimes complex projects, the children and teenagers autonomously choose their tasks. This happens out of curiosity, inclination, and/or abilities, but always with joy. The key difference from regular learning in school and everyday life is clearly the freedom to decide which tasks to tackle. The enjoyment of the activity is the crucial driving factor, allowing participants to experience relatively quick and noticeable successes, big or small.

Working itself provides many starting points for positively influencing independence and learning motivation when working with children and teenagers. The work is always results-oriented and requires precise planning of individual steps. Each of these steps is documented through the participant’s own handcrafted product. Additionally, the projects should always have a connection and utility to daily life: such as drawers and even real football goals. Learning and the learned skills thus gain tangible significance for the children and teenagers, receiving more appreciation than might occur with more abstract learning content.

The young participants receive continuous feedback in joint feedback sessions. Positive reinforcement is emphasized here. Each person’s strengths and abilities are openly addressed in the group. This fosters growing trust in one’s own specific skills over time.

Art can’t be eaten – culture doesn’t fill the stomach! We at KRASS say: yes, it does! Children don’t live and thrive solely for the sake of consuming food.

Play, fun, experimentation, colors, movement, music, and dance strengthen both body and soul. They liberate, relieve, and bring relaxation, balance, and satisfaction.

Encountering culture, absorbing it, experiencing it, inhaling it is part of personal, individual growth. Art and culture serve to enhance perception, successful integration into society, and sensitize individuals to social interaction. Culture opens up one’s perspective beyond the confines of one’s own surroundings. That boundary, for example, often ends at the doorstep due to social disparities because the movement radius of children and teenagers cannot extend beyond the “block” that exists in all countries. The consequence is a vicious cycle of boredom, unease, frustration, aggression, violence, and crime.

If just one child tells us at the end of the day through a KRASS project, “today was my best day ever,” then we know: That child is internally nourished, content, and happy.

Report on the Children’s Studio
Source: RTL – Guten Abend

After the events of New Year’s Eve 2015/16, the refugee discussion has undergone significant changes at the beginning of the year. Instead of focusing mainly on welcoming culture, safety aspects and legal tightening now dominate the debate. For many volunteers who are dedicated to assisting refugees and their integration, this isn’t an easy situation. However, for Claudia Seidensticker from the association “Krass e.V.” in Düsseldorf, for example, the motto remains: Keep going. She doesn’t intend to reduce her commitment in the future – quite the opposite.

Refugee children who have experienced trauma need spaces to arrive, express themselves, simply be children, and paint, craft, and play. This is where integration begins with KRASS.

Since 2009, more than 150 volunteers have contributed around 137,150 hours of charitable work. In 2015 alone, there were 21,650 unpaid hours for the community, amounting to 216,500 euros at a rate of 10 euros per hour.

Since 2009, we have reached almost 30,000 children in total, including 5,200 children in Düsseldorf alone. We think that’s KRASS!

Refugee children have experienced terrible things and are often traumatized. To welcome them and provide them with a sense of carefree joy and happiness, art is a helpful and successful form of expression.

Since 2014, KRASS e.V. has been caring for children and teenagers aged 4 to 18 years old. Every day, professional artists work with great joy towards our goal in many different refugee shelters. Increasingly, we also offer courses for children from Düsseldorf and refugees together, to promote active integration.

Several thousand children have already participated in our courses and activities. Help us reach even more! Support our work with a donation or a supporting membership – your volunteer help is also very welcome!

For a moment of time out. Painting and crafting time. Playtime. Art time. Laughter time.
For a moment of childhood.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: “The colorful diverse world of people” Children can bring their favorite people to life on canvas with their individual skills and ideas, experiencing joy in the process.

FACTS: When: 2021 & 2022 with a public presentation of the 450 painted favorite people on May 8, 2022, in Düsseldorf.

COVID-19 has led to significant educational deficits for children from financially disadvantaged families. The project aims to help these children regain confidence and reconnect with the education system. In regular workshops spanning several months, the participating children engage as multipliers on special project days at their schools, sharing their knowledge with their classmates. In these multicultural workshops, small artworks on the theme of “Favorite Person” are created, forming a large overall collage at the end, highlighting diversity. Each participant in the project is provided with a canvas of 30×30 cm and a wide range of colors. They are free to paint their favorite person on the canvas as they wish. The professionally trained artists leading the project for KRASS e.V. are always available to provide assistance and inspiration.

PROJECT GOALS: Workshops for approximately 500 children in weekly formats over a year. Children create a collage on the theme of diversity & inclusion, allowing them to develop skills in discrimination criticism, tolerance, and focused work. The entire collage will be prepared and publicly presented. Each child’s abilities and age are taken into account, ensuring that everyone can participate and a variety of individual results contribute to the overall artwork. Thus, many square meters of cheerful, colorful children’s artworks from various cultures are created!

Today we introduce you to our artist Elina from Odessa, but let’s hear what Lena has to say 😘

“My superpower is optimism”

Elina comes from Odessa, a city in Ukraine. Due to the war in her homeland, she had to leave it. Before that, she created her own artworks there and has been supporting KRASS since June 2022 with her positive, open, and inspiring nature. With her expertise and warm personality, she supports displaced children from her homeland by helping them process their suppressed emotions through art and creating new positive emotions through art. Additionally, she nurtures the talents of the little ones and brings out the maximum artistic potential in them.

With these clips from the #WeAreKrass video series, we want to give you a glimpse into our world and the work of our artistic directors, while also showing you what fuels the amazing success of our association.

“Art is magic, freed from the lie of being truth” – T.W. Adorno.

Ana was a philosopher before she became an artist, which may differentiate her approach to art. The concept precedes the technique, and the technique is directly intertwined with the art project. Therefore, she works with photography, video, as well as art books, installations, and performances.

After completing her Master’s in “Art, Culture, and Literature for Children and Adolescents,” Ana began a program for Spanish libraries and schools in 2011, consisting of a mix of pedagogy, philosophy, and art.

Currently, she also works as an integration assistant with children who have disabilities and continues her artistic work in her free time with KRASS. The Art Mobile is undoubtedly the most beautiful project she has worked on. The freedom it gives to children to develop their creativity was something she couldn’t find anywhere else before.

The Art Mobile goes where the children who need it the most are, and every week Ana discovers with the children the magic that art brings. By the way, the art bags distributed in the clip come from our sponsor, the Kinderträume Foundation! Thank you for that!

This clip is part of our video series #WeAreKrass. With this series, we aim to give you a glimpse into our KRASS world and the work of our artistic directors while also showing you what fuels the amazing success of our association. In the categories of dance, visual arts, music, and theater, KRASS e.V. has been implementing numerous projects for ten years, providing free access to cultural education for all children and teenagers. We thank our artistic directors who shape our KRASS vision every day with their dedication and carry it into the world. You are awesome!

Kamera/Schnitt: Christian Feculak
Facebook: Medienmanufaktur Düsseldorf
Webseite: https://www.medienmanufaktur-düsseldorf.de

As part of the “anders 8 goes Hassels” project, over 10 teenagers participated in the two-week HipHop workshop “I’m a Hassler.” During this time, three original rap songs were written, recorded, and ultimately presented. The project was conducted in cooperation with the neighborhood project Jumpers in Düsseldorf Hassels. It was funded by the “Bundesverband Soziokultur e.V.” as part of “Kultur macht Stark” and the “Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung” (Federal Ministry of Education and Research).

“anders” – a youth project by KRASS e.V.! Teenagers with diverse interests, talents, and cultures worked together for 4 months, exchanging their diverse perspectives and worldviews through art.

New texts were rapped, written, and slammed; white canvases transformed into vibrant artworks; filming and photography took place. New beats were beatboxed, plucked, and struck; wild ideas replaced old ones – this is lived diversity at the “anders” project.

In our boys’ projects, we primarily ask: What concerns the teenagers living in so-called hotspots? What do masculinity, respect, hate, or love mean to them? We write texts with them, rap, box, spray graffiti, and so much more… Listen to the song “My Homies!”

We are part of “Düsseldorf Engagiert Sich” and are very happy that the film about our work, specifically about Simone Cazin’s, turned out so beautifully! Volunteer work is simply part of KRASS – without the volunteer support of our freelance staff, many activities would not be possible.

Film: State Capital Düsseldorf

The project “KRASSe Perspektiven” is a media education film project for young people by KRASS e.V. It is funded by the Rhineland Regional Association. The short film “Steps in the Dark” deals with the fear and persecution experienced by many people, especially women. The nervousness and uneasy feeling on the dark way home is something that almost every woman has experienced. The fear when a man follows them for a long time. “After dark, I no longer feel safe alone” is a sentence that is a reality for most women.

Four young women between the ages of 16 and 18 developed the screenplay for this short film based on their experiences and fears. It deals with fictional and real persecutions, dreams, fears, and harassments that are intended to draw attention to a very specific issue that often goes unnoticed in society. Everyday sexual harassment and fears in “normal” situations. The goal of the film is to appeal to civil courage, create acceptance, and raise awareness of the issue.

With the support of professional artistic instructors such as a director, a cameraman, a costume and set designer, and a media educator, important theoretical content was imparted to the young people, and assistance was provided in the development of the screenplay, the shooting schedule, a shot list, and a storyboard. In addition, teenage actors were cast, costumes were tried on, props were purchased, and acting rehearsals were conducted. For the shoot, all tasks from makeup to camera operation were taken on and mastered. The film production took over 20 hours in October. Subsequently, the film material was edited, cut, processed, soundtracked, and color-corrected. A group of young people composed their own soundtrack for the thriller.

Due to the high Corona restrictions, we unfortunately cannot present the short film as planned in an art cinema, but we will present it via a YouTube livestream. The film will initially only be available through this stream. A screening in the cinema is expected to take place in the spring of 2021.

During the second week of Easter holidays in 2023 🐰🥕, a group of children from Ukraine took on the role of directors themselves! The children collaborated to create something beautiful and filmed their own movie! They began by learning camera techniques, wrote the script in both German and Ukrainian, painted, built, and crafted the costumes, props, and complete set! The children recorded the film themselves and acted in it! The film holds great value in terms of integration, as it incorporates the traces of both cultures, demonstrating how an integration process should take place. The children had a great time! They thoroughly enjoyed the filming process and grew closer as a group!

The message to you is: You are not alone with your worries! There are people who will listen to you, advise you, and help you, for example, at the Child Protection Association. The video is intended to encourage you to seek help in time. “Come into the light! Together we’ll find a way.”

The music video production is a project by Krass Trier in cooperation with the Youth Services of the city, which also provided financial support for the project.