DISKURS Niederrhein

Your Partner for Education

Wünschestadt: Children Discover Their Community

A Democratic Participation Project for Children in Urban Planning

Our project Wünschestadt (“City of Wishes”) makes visible how children experience their community and provides fresh input for urban planning that takes their perspectives seriously.

Which places do they love? Where do they feel safe, and where do they not? Are there spaces of fear? What is missing for them? On walks through their town, children lead our Space Station team to the places that matter to them.

This reveals how the town looks through children’s eyes: an important perspective that has so far received little attention in urban planning.

Space Station Projects for Democracy Education

The Space Station is our home for democracy education projects, driven by research, genuine participation and trust in children.

It lands wherever children should be heard: in municipalities, neighbourhoods and educational institutions, often in cooperation with youth welfare offices (Jugendämter), schools, providers of open child and youth work or local associations.

Its foundation is Space Station pedagogy: a mindset that takes children seriously, meets them as equals and creates spaces in which their perspectives have an impact.

Wünschestadt is one of these projects.

We bring democracy education to life.

We adapt the format and duration flexibly to the group, the place and the setting.

Methods: Analogue Meets Digital

Traditional, hands-on experience and digital tools combine to create new forms of participation. The whole project is Space Station time. During the neighbourhood walks and in the creative phases that follow, children have their say in every form of expression open to them.

We listen, observe and conduct interviews. Children paint, draw or build models and engage with their town in the process. Digital methods such as QR codes, collages or stop-motion animation extend these possibilities.

The result is a special space in which children bring us closer to their point of view and show us the town they wish for: a Wünschestadt.

A City Map from the Children’s Perspective

Wünschestadt produces a city map drawn from the children’s perspective, unique to your municipality. You learn what matters to children, which places they love, where they feel uneasy and what ideas they have for the future.

This shows what your town is like:

Child-friendly: you give your youngest citizens room to contribute their own perspective
Innovative: you use a participation format that combines analogue and digital methods
Democratic: you make it clear that participation is taken seriously
Attractive: you send a clear signal that you welcome families and are shaping the future

Your municipality gains input that feeds directly into urban development, and at the same time shows that it values children and young people as an important part of society.

Research. Create. Make an Impact.

The Wünschestadt project links three stations that build on one another. Each one is research, participation and democracy education all in one.

Station 1Exploring the Social Space: Children Show Their World

A child leading the way through their town

“Where do you like to spend your time?”

“What frightens you?”

“What would you do differently in your town if you could decide?”

The children explore their neighbourhood. Through photovoice walks, interviews and mental maps they show where they like to spend time, where they feel unsafe and what is missing for them. The result is a picture of their lifeworld that no adult could have drawn alone.

The children set off through their neighbourhood: past the playground, the football pitch, the bus stop. Places they experience every day but have rarely been asked to explain to anyone else. The Space Station educators talk with them, exchange views about these places and recognise them as the experts on their own lifeworld.

With cameras, notepads and digital tools, the children record what they come across along the way: a favourite tree, the place where they meet their friends, the route to school, but also the places where something is missing or getting in the way. Talking with the educators, they explain what these places mean to them. The pictures they take themselves create a view of the town that only they can provide.

Between the stations there is time to talk, to ask questions and to listen. Who feels comfortable where? Which places do they avoid? What would they change? The answers are precise, sometimes surprising, and almost always different from what adults would have expected. We also ask whether they already know how decisions are actually made in a town and who gets a say. They do not get that answer as an explanation; they experience it in the project itself: their observations become ideas, and their ideas become concrete proposals.

Station 2Wünschestadt: Children Build the Future

Using sustainable, open-ended materials that invite creativity, the children build the Wünschestadt: a miniature model of their town, just as they would wish it.

Confidently, with creativity and a sure sense of aesthetics, they show us what matters to them. Our job is to look closely and to understand.

Children see problems, ask about their causes and develop solutions.

No creative limits are placed on these solutions. In one of our projects, the “Grundschule” (primary school) became a “Buntschule”, a colourful school. In another, the answer to too much litter was not more bins but a waste museum, to encourage a more conscious approach to materials.

As the children build, the educators talk with them and learn about the thinking behind each building and every detail. The children draw paths, surfaces and greenery, recreate everyday scenes and try out their own solutions for the spots they noticed on the neighbourhood walk. Every detail is documented, and the Wünschestadt itself is preserved as a work of art.

The Wünschestadt project is run and researched by trained Space Station educators with many years of experience in participatory projects.

Station 3The Results: Children Set Politics in Motion

Handover to policymakers: an adult receives the results from a child

Each project produces:

a research report
a documentary film
a “Wimmelbild” city map from the children’s perspective, a densely illustrated hidden-picture poster carrying the research findings and the children’s own voices, accessible via QR codes

From a democracy project to democracy education that works.

Participation only becomes real impact once the results reach councils, administrations and schools, are seen there and receive a response.

The results go directly to decision-makers: children’s perspectives become visible, audible and effective.

The Space Station has landed. Many towns and hundreds of perspectives from children and young people have already fed into our research and into city maps drawn from the children’s perspective.

When will you join us?

Four Things That Matter for Education and Democracy

We need to:

Generate new momentum in society
Create safe spaces: places where the unfamiliar is not seen as a threat and where solutions are shaped together
Strengthen children and young people, so that they do not face future challenges feeling powerless but experience their own power to shape what comes next
Show commitment to democracy, so that action grows into a lasting attitude

Why we need to look more closely:

Democracy education needs a solid foundation. Studies show that many young people in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) have only limited civic knowledge and are therefore less confident in dealing with democratic processes.

This is exactly where we come in, with projects that deepen knowledge, build competences and bring democracy to life.

Distribution of Civic Knowledge by Proficiency Level in NRW

The chart shows that only 36% of students in NRW have a high level of conceptual civic knowledge. At the same time, a considerable proportion reaches only the lower proficiency levels.

Chart: own illustration. Source: Hahn-Laudenberg, K., Goldhammer, F. & Ateş, R. (2024). Politisches Wissen und Argumentieren [Civic knowledge and reasoning]. In H. J. Abs, K. Hahn-Laudenberg, D. Deimel & J. F. Ziemes (Eds.), ICCS 2022. Schulische Sozialisation und politische Bildung von 14-Jährigen im internationalen Vergleich. Waxmann. Figure 3.13, values for North Rhine-Westphalia. DOI: 10.31244/9783830998228.03

Our Projects: Children Shape Society

Children’s rights exhibitions, democracy workshops, urban planning projects: in the Space Station, children actively shape their own future. Our projects are built on children’s rights and give children and young people the trust and the responsibility they deserve.

Along the way they acquire skills that matter for the world of tomorrow: thinking creatively, taking responsibility, developing solutions. We trust them not only to experience society but to help shape it.

Our Vision: Rethinking Education

We believe that education must be more than the transfer of knowledge.
In the Space Station, children get to know their rights, take responsibility and help shape society. This builds attitudes and competences that no exam will ever test, but that will decide our shared future.

Children’s rights belong in Germany’s Basic Law: we campaign for them to be not merely acknowledged but firmly anchored in the constitution. A strong democracy begins with strong rights for children.

The Space Station: What, How, Why

What We Do: Space Station Projects

For six years we have been running projects in daycare centres and schools throughout the Kleve district (Kreis Kleve). Space Station pedagogy supports children and young people individually and helps them acquire the skills to shape their own future with confidence.

Together with local institutions we develop formats that fit precisely and slot straight into everyday life at school and in the daycare centre.

How We Do It: Space Station Pedagogy

Space Station pedagogy turns educational settings into safe spaces where children experience an intense and formative time.

Its key features:

Appreciation instead of evaluation
Children’s rights as the foundation of every situation
Participation at every level of the process
Recognition of children’s competence
Curiosity and enthusiasm as the driving force
Individual learning prompts from Space Station educators
Safe spaces that create the best possible conditions for development

The methodological approach of the Space Station combines the proven with the new. We rely on traditional educational methods that allow children to experience the world with all their senses.

Why We Do It: Our Goals

We want children to face future challenges not with a sense of powerlessness but with the ability to shape them. Our projects leave a lasting impact. They shape attitudes, encourage participation and let children experience that society only works when it is built together.

At the same time we see ourselves as partners to the professionals on the ground. We recognise their expertise and the value of their work, and we coordinate closely with them so that we can respond precisely to their needs. On that basis we develop tailored formats that fit into the daily routine of their institutions.

Team Space Station: Bringing People Together for Children’s Rights

Children’s Rights Are Our Foundation, Appreciation Our Principle

Children are our passion, and their rights are the compass for everything we do. Our approach: appreciate rather than evaluate.

What defines us: we work in the middle of real life. In large children’s rights exhibitions, in creative participation projects, in cooperation with daycare centres, schools and child and youth services. That is where we see every day how much power there is in children’s ideas.

These experiences inspire us and drive us to connect theory and practice in a way that makes real change possible: for children, for professionals, for society as a whole.

“Take children as they are!”

“Trust in what they can do, observe them and, wherever it is truly needed, help them. That is all it takes.”

Dagmar W. Nieke

Childhood and Media Educator (M.A.)
Head of Research

“People without flaws are children.”

“With Diskurs Niederrhein and the Space Station we stand up for the rights of children and young people and create opportunities for lasting, positive change in the educational landscape.”

Till Nieke

Managing Director

Our Expertise: Research Meets Practice

Connecting theory and practice to create solutions that are both grounded in research and workable in everyday life. Our team combines academic research with hands-on experience.

We develop projects on the basis of current educational theory, didactics and the psychology of learning, and we deliver them successfully with schools, daycare centres and institutions. We advise, we support, and we create formats that match local needs precisely.

Our strength: we can analyse, design and roll up our sleeves at the same time.

Our Strength: A Range of Methods Backed by Media Literacy

We draw on the full range of educational methods, from proven approaches such as role play, creative workshops, project work and discussion circles through to innovative digital formats.

We know how children learn, which is why we choose methods that spark curiosity, enable participation and have a lasting effect. Media are an important addition here. Interviews, QR codes, digital visualisations and creative media work extend the toolkit and open up new forms of expression for children.

In this way we combine tradition and innovation, put practical methods into the hands of professionals and create results that are visible and effective.

Contact

Would you like to work with us, do you have an idea for a project or simply a question? We look forward to hearing from you.

desk@diskurs-niederrhein.de

We usually reply within a few working days.