In order to avoid disappointment during your period of work abroad it may be useful to think in advance about whether your expectations are realistic and whether you have the right skills to make a meaningful contribution.

The seminar MOTIVATION should help you evaluate your own expectations and skills in relation to the possible requirements in the potential working place. This information should help you make a decision as to whether working abroad would be the right thing for you and then whether your focus should lie in helping or rather just in learning.

In the workshop CHALLENGES potential situations are broached using role-play and constructive solutions are sought. The aim is to prepare for difficult scenarios you may face and to look for creative ways of handling them.

In the workshop REPORTING clichéd pictures and texts are critically questioned and alternatives are developed.

The goal of the workshop is to understand that reports can have a strong impact and to learn about possibilities for reporting in a differentiated way.

The workshop REPORTING is about analysing different case studies and developing alternatives. The participants will deal with clichéd images and get to know alternatives for reporting.

The aim of the workshop is to get to know different ways of reporting which realistically portray people’s lives in developing countries and which take into account diverse voices and perspectives.

The workshop HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION is about the origin of the idea of the worldwide fight against poverty and the strategies that were adopted over the course of decades.

The term “development” is controversial as it is based on the one-sided assumption that poor countries ought to develop, while wealthier countries are already developed.

Although there is less poverty in high-income countries they do not live up to their supposed role model function: Through their wasteful way of life they endanger the planet and they benefit more from “developing countries” than they help them.

The workshop DEVELOPMENT addresses different viewpoints on “development”.

This approach is increasingly brought into question as it says little about well-being, justice and a sound environment. In the meantime the notion is being adopted more and more that development is a multifaceted phenomenon and also that dimensions such as education, life expectancy or inequality should be considered.

In the workshop MEASURING DEVELOPMENT the theme of what a person needs to develop will be explored. On this basis three different methods of measurement of development will be introduced.

In the workshop POVERTY two of the most common methods for measuring poverty are introduced. According to the World Bank, extreme poverty is present when a person has to survive with less than 1.90 USD per day or 57 USD per month. The UN for its part has proposed to measure not only financial means but also different other dimensions of poverty such as health and education.

The aim of the workshop is to understand the most common methods for measuring poverty.