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The Institute for Applied Cultural Research (IFAK) is a cultural association active since 1988. It was created by cultural and social scientists with the aim to connect science and cultural praxis, to develop political ideas in projects with groups from different fields of the society and to support the development of intercultural competencies.
IFAK was a founder of the Information Center for Development Policy in Göttingen. It coordinated the Working Association of the One World Networks in Germany and initiated the founding of Education 21 in Southern Lower Saxony, a network of the approx. 50 educational institutes in the region. IFAK is member of the supervisory board of the network. Since 2002, the IFAK has become active in research and praxis of intercultural communication in the frame of the program “Learning Culture Competency Development” of the Ministry for Education and Research. This 2 years project "Improving the Competencies of Migrants through Learning Consulting" offers, among other results, the development of a curricula for intercultural trainings.
Campaigning different issues of development politics is one major part of the everyday work. Since round about two years IFAK is focusing on peace issues too, emphasising the connection between peace and development and the necessity to take into account in which cultural context the conflict transformation takes place. IFAK was the coordinator of the public relations campaign for Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) in Germany. Within this project it organised public events, seminars, workshops, an exhibition and information tours to inform about NP and its work. Currently IFAK organised a day of Non-violence in Göttingen in the frame of an exhibition tour of the One World Networks.
In addition IFAK takes part in:
Network Migration, which aims to promote the integraion of immigrants, resettlers, refugees and foreigners in Göttingen.
Archiv³, which was founded in 1998. It is a Network of eleven Documentation Centers in Germany with focus on issues within the range of development politics.
Somaliland, where IFAK supports an orthopedic workshop that produces prostheses for mine-victims.
Publications in this areas:
Bausteine interkultureller Persönlichkeitsentwicklung (Modules of Intercultural Personal Development), in: Kompetenzdokumentationen (Competence Documentation about informal gained Professional Competencies), Berlin 2005.
Kompetenzen von Migrant/innen durch professionelle Lernberatung fördern (Development of Competencies of Migrants through Professional Learning Consultance) in: Prozessbegleitende Lernberatung – gelebte Lernkultur (Learning Consultance in Process – Practising Learning Culture), Berlin 2006
Critical Ecology, which is the only journal in german language that deals with isues of ecology and development in an interlinked way.
Cargo, wich is a journal for cultural anthropology
IFAK Institut für angewandte Kulturforschung e.V. – Institute for Applied Cultural Research
Wilhelmsplatz 3
37073 Göttingen
Germany
Tel.: 0551/487141 Fax 0551/487143