Immersive Learning Led by Liege

Belgium | Liege

The City of Liege leveraged its connections with youth centres across the city to develop an interactive learning experience for young people on hate and extremism.

The City of Liege’s Prevention Department used its City Grant to send 10 young people from Liege to travel to Berlin on 4 – 6 July 2023 where they learned about far-right and nationalist extremism and violence, visiting a number of historical and cultural sites, including:

Concentration Camp Kz Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg
Topographie des Terrors (former headquarters of Gestapo)
“Macht Taum Gewalt” exhibition
Memorial of the German Resistance to Nazism (“Gedenkstatte Deutscher Widerstand”)
Wall Memorial (“Gedenkstatte Berliner Mauer”)
East Side Gallery
Reichstag Palace (National Parliament)
Futurium, Ministry of Education and Research
Historical walk that included visits to Memorial Church, Victory Column, Brandenburg Gate, Humboldt Universtiy’s “Sunken Library”, Holocaust Memorial, Memorial for European Sinti and Roma, Checkpoint Charlie, Potsdamer Platz district.

Facilitating Exposure to Key Extremism Trends in Europe

The young people also learned about issues of hate and extremism from different European experts. In Berlin, they met with ISD researchers (organised by Young Cities) and in Liege, they attended seminars at the University of Liege with lecturer and Home Office expert Yves Rogister and met with Manuel Cameron (PVE Coordinator, City of Liege).

To help promote diversity, the city recruited programme participants with support from six youth centres in the city and local officials acknowledged the valuable youth-city ties that emerged from their engagement in the Young Cities programme.