19.01.2021

In 2021: Learning with Africa, Asia and Europe

All our conferences and seminars are accessible under "weiterbilden" on this website. Online registration is possible in many cases. (Photo: M.Pauly/UEM)

The educational programs of the UEM will be further internationalized! So far, they have been offered largely separately in Africa, Asia and Germany. The UEM regional offices in Dar es Salaam and Pematangsiantar and the education centers in Germany developed programs according to the wishes of the member churches in their regions. Each year, regional lists were created in this way: "Joint Programs Africa", "Joint Programs Asia" and "Seminars and Training Programs in Germany". Anyone interested could participate, and churches also specifically registered their staff for special continuing education courses.

Historical developments: Regional training programs in Asia, Africa, Germany

This regional educational organization in the UEM was good and has historical roots. For after the transformation of the UEM from a German mission organization into an international fellowship of churches in 1996, the churches in the regions wanted and often needed to get to know each other better before they could really work together. Many were not very familiar with each other - also a late consequence of 19th century colonialism, which had made European contacts more important than intra-African and intra-Asian ones. Now, however, three innovations in the international UEM structure ensured that the churches in the regions could work together intensively: The regional leadership structures, the establishment of the regional offices in Kigali, later Dar-es-Salaam for Africa and in Medan for Asia, and finally the so-called "Joint Programs". These were training programs, but what made them special was that they were planned jointly by several churches in a region and carried out for the churches in the region. In the early 2000s, for example, there was an intensive exchange of choirs and musical styles between the UEM member churches in Tanzania, Botswana and Rwanda. Or in the Asia region: For a long time, the focus there was on the development of ecological agriculture. Churches in Indonesia, in particular, trained together in the Joint Programs. Since 1996, there have been 20 to 25 such programs each year in Africa and Asia. They responded to the churches' need for further training for their staff.  They were financed by the churches themselves: In order to be able to carry out the regional training programs, the churches decided together in 1996 that they would pay for them from their budgets. 100,000 per region was available annually for Joint Programs. In addition to those just mentioned, the main topics were, for example: Training in pastoral care, seminars to promote economic independence for women, joint choir projects, further training in mission and evangelism, exchanges between rectors of church colleges, international training visits ("Team Visits") on diaconal topics, the management of church aid programs after natural disasters, or fundraising in the region ("Joint Action"). 

Over the past 20-plus years, these programs have brought together a wide range of people within the regions. Many of them continue to be in contact with each other and have formed professional networks in which they regularly exchange information about their fields of work, thus continuing the exchange and cooperation that was started with the "Joint Programs".

2021: From regional to international educational programs

Now the UEM is going one step further. With the exception of program offerings whose participants are naturally well-defined - for example, seminars for departing volunteers or returned exchange staff - or whose topics are deliberately intended to be dealt with only at the level of one region - for example, in the case of controversial topics or those that affect only one region and require internal processes of clarification and understanding - many seminars and "Joint Programs" are now being opened up to all regions.  With the new educational concept "Global Learning in Ecumenical Perspective", the UEM promotes the joint learning of people from all three regions on jointly named topics in internationally composed groups. As a result, the majority of all training programs are now internationally accessible. For example, a nurse from Altena can now register for a seminar on community-based nursing in Berastagi, or a superintendent from Banjarmasin for a seminar for women leaders in Cape Town, or a pastor from the Karagwe diocese for a training course in pastoral care in Manila.  Learning with each other, not about each other, is the goal of this concept and thereby improving the quality of church work, for the work in Bukoba, Jakarta, Detmold, Candy or elsewhere in the world.

The educational programs are carried out by internationally composed leadership teams, and the learning groups are also internationally composed.

However, at this time, due to the Covid 19 pandemic and the travel restrictions resulting from it, not all programs can be physically held in one location. The programs indicated are therefore conducted online or in "blended learning" formats - i.e., a mix of face-to-face and online elements. More detailed information on each individual program is available in each seminar description.

The list of all training programs and seminars planned for 2021 can be found here on this website. Are you interested, would you like to participate? Feel free to contact us, we look forward to your interest!

Dr Dyah Krismawati (Executive Secretary Asia Region)

Dr John Wesley Kabango (Executive Secretary Africa Region)

Angelika Veddeler (Executive Secretary Germany Region)