Report




A Brief Summary of the Week-end in Berlin

The attendees (Photo from Iris)


Back l to r: Heide Hindahl, Noureddine Eraddi, Dimitris Polychronopoulos, Katrine Haugli, Patricia Comolet, Sylvia Bessler, Felicia Sexsmith, Michael Buchman

Front l to r: Heike Stengal, Joe Kearns, Cynthia Tilden-Machleidt, Iris Barnert


Behind the camera: Vera Zeihsel



Not in picture: Sarah Groethe


Highlights

Presentations from local projects which gave us some insights into what work is being done in Berlin. We were joined for these presentations by a young Syrian couple, friends of Cynthia’s, who have made incredible strides in settling in to Berlin. Their story was both moving and inspiring. We were also joined by a young IT expert from Iraq now working at the university – his story also was hopeful and uplifting.  See below for links to the various projects. 

Work on the structure of information the SIG will share. We divided into two groups as follows:

  1. Looking at what categories of data we will store – the so-called Grid – what are the key identifiers for data stored. For example, if we reference a website which deals with language education of refugees we might categorise under both Education and Language. This is a critical need if we are to follow through on the need we identified at the Brussels meeting to allow us to store and to retrieve information and knowledge for the SIG members 
  2. Define how an application/website might function. We examined how the application might be accessed and by whom, the security and legal issues to be considered and other data and functionality issues

We will publish more details on our findings in the next few weeks

Refugee  Tour of Berlin – Sunday a.m


A group of us took a tour of Berlin organised by a local group and given by refugees. While some of us found the tour to be less than we expected, on a very cold, windy and wet morning, it nonetheless provided lots of material for conversation and further investigation

Conversations over food and drink 

As usual some of the best conversations tool place during the coffee breaks and over our evening meals. Friday night we ate at a Greek restaurant where Dimitris ordered a traditional Greek style meal where we shared many different dishes. Saturday evening we went to a German restaurant and some of us left there very late indeed. Sunday lunch was at a wonderful Syrian restaurant called Yarok on Wilhelmstraße.

Pros and Cons of the week-end


Pros

We had a wonderful group of people who engaged, contributed and inspired. We all made new friends and renewed old acquaintances.
We got some great work done on the both the structure and functionality of an application to allow us to share critical information and to support each other in the work we do.
Great venue and facilities

Cons


Not enough time! As happened in Brussels we found we did not have enough time to cover all the topics which we had planned to address
Not enough focus on topics of interest. By necessity we focussed on the practical aspect of how we will share knowledge and as this took more time that we planned for we had to drop the group discussions from the schedule. We will take all this into consideration for future events

The presentations





Note on organisation: We need to pay tribute here to the amazing work done locally by Cynthia. This included organising the venue, for free, getting her students to do all the catering for our breaks, which was wonderful fare, and organising the presentation from local organisations. All of this was hugely time-consuming. 
Thanks Cynthia!