Against the odds, progress towards building sustainable communities can be achieved from the most difficult of circumstances. This is an idea I use when I take students to Berlin to connect the past, present and future of the city to understand how the principles of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). Students experience the visible history of war, ends of conflict and reparation. The students also get to meet people working in NGOs, meet refugee and migrant communities trying to make new lives in the city and roll up their sleeves to volunteer and work together as a team to benefit others.

This year’s visit was also timely for two reasons – marking the countdown to the International Day of Peace presenting an opportunity to prepare a project to mark the event by identifying 10 ‘Actions for Peace’ during the visit and secondly as I start to document this work, the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom are accused of ‘trivial nastiness’ towards refugee families, particularly children, by ordering the removal of Mickey Mouse images at migrant reception centres. I’m proud to say the students on this trip painted cartoon characters on a refugee reception centre. So take that!

The Itinerary

Day 1:

Arrive and get settled

Day 2: 

Meet Carsten Otto from Sparkasse Foundation, the charitable arm of a bank delivering impact projects for the city and region.

Visit Marienfeld Refugee Center Museum to understand the history of forced migration due to political ideology learning from the East German experience of fleeing communism to meeting modern day refugees and asylum seekers living in the centre, trying to build a new life.

Day 3:

Walk the street ‘Unter Den Linden’ starting at Alexanderplatz going all the way through Brandenberg Gate to conclude at Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Day 4: 

Volunteering with ‘Serve the City Berlin’, an NGO. The students were asked to brighten up the refugee centre at Tempelhof by painting murals for children on the site. 

Meeting with British Defence Attaché in Germany, RAF Group Captain Mark Heffron to understand Britain in Germany, our strong relationship with the country and our current innovative collaborations together at the British Embassy in Berlin.

Day 5:

A reflection session to understand what we had learned where the students debate what 10 Actions for Peace could be based on their experiences of learning about the past, present and future of Berlin.

And finally…leave for home!

10 Actions for Peace Project

Berlin serves as a lesson that shows that a well-functioning democracy is an important tool to be preserved and that against the odds creativity and culture can be fostered to create social movements and that strong institutions do matter. These are key tenets of SDG 16.

Visitors to Berlin can see the physical destruction of war in the bullet holes on the walls, they can see, feel, hear and taste the culture while consuming the creativity that surrounds them. Berlin also looks to the future with its influence on the tech scene – once nicknamed ‘Silicon Allee’ – and a new, recent, strive forward amongst the charity and business sectors in the city to become the world’s ‘Global Impact Capital’ – committed to collaboration for sustainability. All of this has been achieved since the end of the Second World War which left the city in ashes, and the subsequent Cold War which divided Berlin in two.  

Within these contexts I ask the students to take the opportunity to think how this successful reinvention of a city can inform political policy. I set the students a task of working together to come up with 10 lessons which would be workable in a global context. 

In doing so, this allows understanding of importance of the targets and indicators of SDG 16 – principally promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. 

SDG 16 promotes a (challenging) vision that by 2030, people everywhere should be free of fear from all forms of violence and feel safe as they go about their lives whatever their ethnicity, faith or sexual orientation. 

Some examples of how the targets of SDG 16 work to help progress other aspects of improving sustainability are:

• Effective government 
• Ending war and violence 
• Tackling corruption
• Creating inclusive communities

You can list every wicked problem in the world and few, if any, could be eradicated without peaceful democratic societies, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions. Without achieving SDG16, it will be very hard to achieve social justice and progress against the world’s biggest problems.

Students are encouraged to see Berlin as European powerhouse – economically and politically, as a great leader in the free world, certainly the most influential political player in Europe.

I ask students to consider Berlin’s current status and the wider role of Germany in modern history and to view it as a remarkable transformation in fortune. 

Much of this pivots on the Second World War – including the many political disgraces before, after and during. Often events leading up to this in the 1930s are overlooked (I’m grateful for Gary Lineker bringing this back to our attention recently on Twitter). Be assured the history of this moment has some familiar themes… In the 1930s Berlin, like other German cities, was facing economic depression, widescale unemployment and radical right-wing politics was growing in popularity. The photo left is a demonstration by angry unemployed men and women in Berlin during that time.

Later there was a breakdown in democratic process, a flouting of the rules and a new set of norms introduced including the ‘othering’ of communities deemed outside the mainstream, particularly Jewish people. Misinformation was planted in the media. Propaganda was rife. And sadly, we know how it ended – the Second World War – a human-made catastrophe. What happened next was a further political catastrophe which carved Germany in two and split Berlin into four– with political ideologies at play and the city visibly and physically divided by a Wall.

Yet despite all this, Berlin in 2023 is now a united city and home to 7 million residents of whom 812,705 possess a foreign passport. People originating from 190 countries live there.

In 2015, Berlin was the poster child of Germany’s successful integration of Syrian refugees and is now amongst the German cities that have taken in the most Ukrainian refugees — with an estimated 85,000 currently registered.

Within this context including an incredible influx of people from around the world the economy grows and the city flourishes – so I ask students what that might tell us.

The role of strong institutions should not be overlooked. For example, innovation and start-up culture are supported here at government level with a wide range of programmes and business support.

This has stimulated an ecosystem where Berlin sees around 40,000 business registrations annually as well as more than 500 start-up companies. Thirty-five per cent of Germany’s fintech (finance + technology…) start-ups in the country are based in the city. Much of this is in focussed on green tech movement for environmental and climate impact.

Finally, I’d like to mention I have a personal connection to Berlin. My late grandfather, Ken Garner, (pictured right), a British soldier, was involved in the post-war occupation of the city in 1945 onwards. He lived on the campus of the Olympiastadion in Charlottenburg. His stories of his life at that time had a big effect on my political thinking, my ambition to speak fluent German and the football team I support – Hertha BSC. 

Berlin now has a reputation for being a Global Impact City – pulling together resources from business, NGOs, education and civil society for improved social change.  This is quite a turnaround when some countries over the past 10 years have gone in the opposite direction. Drawing on all this, coupled with visits to see sites of historic significance, meeting people who work in global impact, volunteering with refugee communities and experiencing the creativity and culture of the city, at the end of the week, I ask the students to debate which the 10 best policies to build a better future.

Legacy

Noting that this blog is getting long, I will detail the activities and outcomes in other posts and link them back. At this point it should be highlighted that the students have developed new projects for the academic calendar from the trip for 2023/24 delivery. These include:

• Promoting the Actions for Peace on the International Day of Peace by publishing their findings.
• Developing a new, ambitious project promoting the voices of refugees highlighting the reasons people who flee their countries to see a new life in Europe, the things they lose and the challenges they face to start again.
• Preparing a Policy Brief for COP 28 in Dubai on issues facing Climate Refugees.