Academy and Studying in Germany

The International University provides training in audio-visual communication to those working in environmental professions and the media, for communicating issues related to the environment and sustainability is no easy matter. So far, the continuing education seminars have taken place in Chile and Germany, but other countries are set to follow, starting with Brazil.

Kilian Rüfer had originally planned to work in advertising, though he wasn’t entirely happy with this decision: “I didn’t feel comfortable about the idea of spending all day in front of a computer performing meaningless tasks”, says Rüfer, who is now 30.

Once he had completed his training as a digital and print media designer in 2005, Rüfer thus decided to enrol in a bachelor’s degree programme in arboriculture at Göttingen University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HAWK). The course focuses on the protection of trees in urban environments, and later he completed a master’s degree in renewable primary products and energy sources. This quickly allowed him to gain the knowledge and skills he would need in his later professional career.

Rüfer soon managed to combine his media expertise with the contents of his chosen subject. He wrote his dissertation on Corporate Identity – A Profile for Arboriculture Degree Programmes and Their Graduates. He also began working on a freelance basis while still a student. For many years he has helped associations, agencies and companies working in the field of the environment to communicate their issues – one of them being the energy agency Region Göttingen. These days this is how he earns his living.

Environmental issues: difficult to communicate

One thing that helped Rüfer was a seminar at the International University. The university was established in 2004 by the Kolleg für Management und Gestaltung nachhaltiger Entwicklung (i.e. College for the Management and Design of Sustainable Development) in Berlin and a Chilean NGO in cooperation with numerous other funding partners. Its aim is to provide training in audio-visual communication in order to enable its students to communicate environmental issues of global relevance via the Internet or short films, for this is still no easy task.

The difficulty of communicating environmental issues is something Kilian Rüfer also experiences time and time again: “Many people think about climate change, for instance, yet essentially this is an invisible process – and it is hard to grasp today what consequences it may have in the future.” What is more, there is a need to dispel many preconceived ideas and provide information about complex relationships: “It is important to consider carefully which information is most likely to get people to devote greater attention to the issue.”

Students develop their own media campaigns

When Rüfer took part in the 2010 International Summer University in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the course addressed topics such as energy and the protection of the earth. Together with freelance film-maker Ephraim Broschkowski, his team developed ideas for short films which they later also put into practice. He and another student took on the role of producer for a film entitled Die Erde hat Fieber (i.e. The Earth Has a Fever). The film asks whether we will find a solution to climate change – or whether we wish simply to pass the buck to our children.

In the film, children heal the earth in their own way: they simulate illnesses, gather together the pills and medicines they get from their parents – and end up rubbing an ointment for the relief of cold symptoms into a tree. “Making the film was the most valuable experience of the entire seminar”, says Kilian Rüfer: “especially as we had so little time to complete it”.

New courses to be offered

Now, the experience gained during the continuing education seminars in Germany and Chile is also to be applied to other countries. The first International Summer University in Brazil took place in 2011. It is geared to participants from many different disciplines: to journalists, for instance, and to staff of NGOs, business or government institutions. As with the other courses, a two-week on-site attendance programme is framed by two e-learning phases.

Responsible for implementing the new programme in Brazil, in cooperation with the Kolleg, is the German NGO Ecomove International, which has long been active in the field of environmental education; it has also focused for some years on Brazil: “The idea of applying the concept to other countries has been around for some time”, explains Ecomove co-director Michael Greif: “always tailored to the issues currently relevant to the country in question”.

During the e-learning phase, participants may, for example, address questions relating to the future: How might Brazil look in the year 2050? And what needs to be done today in order to achieve this goal? “Working in small groups, the participants may for instance write a text on the subject and publish it in the form of a blog”, explains Greif. The idea is to create new platforms which can be used to inform people about the pressing problems which exist today. In Brazil, for example, these would include the destruction of the Amazon rain forests, or indeed the growing criticism of the western style of consumerism that is becoming more widespread in Brazil.

New networks emerge automatically

During the two-week attendance phase at the Goethe-Institut in São Paulo, participants are then initially given additional input as regards content: What is meant by sustainability? What happens with climate change? In the second week, they implement their own concepts: “The key question always concerns how best to communicate a particular issue and who exactly one wishes to address”, explains Michael Greif. The main focus is on short films and Internet campaigns.

There is another outcome of the summer universities, too: by the end, new networks emerge in which the actors are able to profit from the knowledge of the others. In the case of Kilian Rüfer, a network of alumni was even created who jointly present themselves in the public domain: “This makes it easier to initiate new projects.”