Culture makes you strong

In Germany, social background and educational success are still closely linked. In order to provide children and young people with good educational opportunities and enable them to participate in society, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) supports extracurricular cultural education projects.

Almost every third child in Germany grows up in a difficult social situation that makes access to education difficult. With the programme "Kultur macht stark. Alliances for Education" programme, the BMBF has been funding extracurricular cultural education opportunities for children and young people aged three to 18 throughout Germany since 2013, who otherwise have little access to them. Selected funders and initiatives are responsible as programme partners for implementation at the Federal level. The projects are implemented locally by "Alliances for Education" with one partner each from the educational, cultural and social sectors.

A variety of educational projects such as reading promotion, holiday camps, music, dance, theatre or circus activities are offered. In addition, projects are implemented with digital media. Cultural education projects promote self-confidence and strengthen the personality as well as social skills. They open up new perspectives and are the basis for social participation.

By anchoring extracurricular educational projects nationwide, the programme contributes to more educational justice and educational opportunities for children and young people in Germany.

DLR-PT as a competent partner for more educational opportunities

Since 2012, DLR Projektträger (DLR-PT) has been advising and supporting the BMBF throughout the entire programme cycle of "Kultur macht stark": from the drafting of the funding guidelines to the selection of the funded programme partners and their technical and administrative support to public relations, evaluation, networking and specialist communication. In addition, we designed the programme's own database KUMASTA.

Our intensive support ensures the quality of this complex funding construct. With our expertise and thematic competence, as well as our many years of experience in funding management, we are able to provide sound, data-based support and advice to the BMBF as well as to representatives from the professional community and civil society. As part of our public relations work, we have designed and implemented programme brochures, films and newsletters and coordinated external contractors. In addition, we contribute to the programme website and social media. We have already designed and helped implement numerous events, such as the digital programme conference "Kultur macht stark: Chancen, Teilhabe, Perspektiven" with over 300 participants. The livestream of the conference recorded more than 1,000 hits.

A wide variety of over 45,000 educational offers have already been implemented, in which more than 1,3 million children and young people participated. DLR-PT successfully accompanied the programme partners in the establishment of over 17,000 local, civil society-based alliances for education. In cooperation with the Federal States and the specialist community, we have established a nationwide support structure for "Kultur macht stark" to promote quality development, networking and the transfer of results.