CulturistsSquared

In 2016, Christine Worch and Frauke Müller presented a completely novel project called KulturistenHoch2 to Mr. Wolter, our then principal, and me as the head of the German department. It did not take many words from the two dedicated ladies to convince us that we wanted to be involved from the start as one of three pilot schools, because the idea of this social project speaks for itself:

KulturistenHoch2 invites senior women and men on a small pension to use Hamburg's cultural offerings for free – together with a high school upperclassman from the same district. In doing so, it harnesses the immense power of art and culture to act as a bridge between two generations that too often in daily life remain complete strangers to one another.

As we had expected, in the very first year many upper-secondary students shared our enthusiasm for the Kulturisten idea and dared to take this first big step into volunteering.

In internal school workshops as well as in external trainings they were prepared for their new task and have, in many cultural events, proven how much self-confidence, openness and not least joy they bring to the joint activities with the older people.

We are also delighted to note how much momentum KulturistenHoch2 has gained with its wonderful project in the last two years: for example they have secured our deputy mayor Katharina Fegebank and, now also, Senator Melanie Leonard as patrons, have increasingly captured the media spotlight, integrated five new schools in additional city districts into the project, and have already received several prestigious awards.

For this reason as well we are very proud and glad to be back on board in the current school year as KulturistenHoch2 continues its great generation-spanning project.

Janine Brenzinger