German and Palestinian students discuss conflicts in their cultures college partnership Bethlehem Cologne brings video conference seminar successfully a Cologne/Bethlehem, October 16, 2008 – seven students of the University of Bethlehem to sit on their chairs and look at the monitor in front of them. “There they see live their colleagues of the Catholic University in Cologne, with which it jointly the video conference seminar participation in a society characterized by diversity” visit. Through this technique, a new teaching method arises in the college partnership. Students and professors of the two universities occur despite a distance of thousands of kilometres in an intercultural understanding and exchange knowledge, by presenting papers from different disciplines and discuss dealing with conflicts in their cultures”, explained Ingeborg Tiemann, specialist in the civil peace service of work community for development aid (AGEH) and lecturer at the University of Bethlehem. For sensitive Topics from religion and politics were often irritated the participants. You were faced with foreign thought and experienced their own thinking suddenly no longer taken for granted. But rather than to hold back out of courtesy when disagreements, they included in the protection of the media courage, open conflicts to allow.

For me as a specialist in the civil peace service, conflicts are a part of every social life together. It comes not to suppress them, participants should rather jointly consciously experience”, as Tiemann next. Conflicts expanded the horizons, provided that they do not turn into violence. Michael Steeb, Managing Director of AGEH, confirmed: the students learn a constructive dealing with conflicts during the joint work. In private life and in her later career she can share this ability and have a multiplier effect”. The AGEH closer to their vision of a peaceful world for a piece. About the AGEH: 1959 founded Association for development aid e.V. (AGEH) is the personal service of German Catholics for international cooperation and state-recognised development service.

25 members carry the Club. These include Catholic development organizations, such as the Episcopal Relief Organization Misereor, the Kolping Society and the Caritasverband. At the Cologne headquarters, 46 employees serve the now approx. 280 professionals from abroad. The AGEH is one also of eight carriers of the program funded by the Federal Government civilian peace service”. The AGEH wants to contribute that living in a world in full development for all is possible, people live in dignity and the poor as makers and designers can act autonomously their own development and their community. Contact: Association for development aid (AGEH) e. V. wife Katharina Engels press and work community outreach Ripuarenstr. 8, 50679 Koln phone 0221/8896-210 fax 0221/8896-100 E-Mail: nic.pr network integrated communication Patrick Schroeder Coburg road 3 53113 Bonn phone + 49 228 620 43 82 fax + 49 228 620 44 75 email: