Sievershausen / near Hannover / Germany
21.07.- 28.07. 2026
Age 18+
Language: English
Training on peace education and civic engagement A theatrical perspective from collective work, care and community building
We invite young activists, youth workers, educators and youth leaders from across Europe who are eager to learn, share experiences and collaborate creatively to explore peace as a collective, relational and political practice.

This training offers a space to connect with our bodies, biographies and communities, creating an environment of mutual care, empowerment and collective resilience.
In a world shaped by conflicts, inequalities and multiple forms of violence, thinking about peace also means asking ourselves how we care for one another, how we sustain ourselves and how we strengthen community as a collective response to exhaustion, fear and precarity.
From this perspective, our role as young leaders and educators is not only to make visible and resist, but also to create spaces of mutual care and collective containment. Peace is understood here not as an individual state, but as a collective, relational and ongoing practice built through shared action.
Through embodied, biographical and collective theater methodologies, everyday experiences of exhaustion, anxiety, fear and resistance are transformed into shared material for reflection and performative creation. Theater becomes a space of encounter, dialogue and resistance, where diverse perspectives can coexist and democratic coexistence can be practiced. Throughout the training, diversity, solidarity and mutual respect are central values.

What awaits you in our sessions:

• Acting & group building: Introduction to the theme, group dynamics and cohesion. What is peace and how do we understand community?
• Biographical Theater: Sharing life experiences and identifying common ground, conflicts and resources through theatre tools.
• Theater of the Oppressed & intersectionality: Reflecting on power, privilege and exclusion, and exploring collective responses.
• Physical Theater & embodied work: Exploring gesture, memory, exhaustion and resistance through the body.
• Collective creation: Developing a shared performative project based on what we have learned together.
• Individual transfer: How to apply these tools and learnings in your own activist, educational or community context.

Who can apply?

• You are interested in peace, care, anti-discrimination and community building
• You have experience in youth work, activism, education or non-formal learning
• You are open to embodied work and collective processes
• You value safe spaces, mutual respect and diversity
• FLINTA* persons are especially encouraged to apply

This is a violence- and discrimination-free space. Diversity is a strength and everyone is welcome.

Curious about the trainer’s work?
Check out ? www.aquitheaterberlin.de

About the trainers
We are happy to announce that again Lorena Valdenegro and Ale Acuña Alday will be our trainers:
Lorena Valdenegro is director, physical theater and dance theater actress and theater pedagogue. She holds a degree in performing arts from the Universidad del Desarrollo in Santiago de Chile. In 2016 she founded AQUItheater Berlin, a scenic experimentation laboratory that opens safe and creative spaces that promote empowerment and the acceptance and celebration of the body, as well as the visualization of topics that are taboo in our society.
Ale Acuña Alday is Chilean actress and migrant, Bachelor of Arts in Theater Performance from the Catholic University of Chile, with a specialization in body studies, and Diploma in Art Therapy Fundamentals. Her practice spans theater, dance, and performance. She focuses on artistic expressions that explore identity, territory, and bodily memory, particularly in the context of contemporary female experience.

Conditions for participation according to Erasmus + regulations

•  Date of arrival: 21.07.26 – in the afternoon
•  Date of departure: 28.07.26 – in the morning
•  1-3 participants per organisation from following regions: EU-Europe, Eastern Europe, Caucasus, Mediterranean regions
•  Age: 18+ (no upper limit)
•  Working language: English; a good command of English is required
•  Location: Sievershausen near Hannover / Germany
•  Previous experience: you should have some experience in running non-formal youth learning or political education activities
•  ICJA, as Hosting Organization of this offer, will organise the accommodation and cover the costs for accommodation and food
•  We will provide an overview of conditions of participation
•  Participation fee: we try to adjust the fee to the purchasing power in the different countries.
  => Fee for participants from Germany, West and North European countries: 50,-€
  => Fee for participants from South and East European countries: 25,-€

How to apply to this training? 

You need to be placed by a partner, who is working in your country of residence and you should live in one of this regions:  EU- Europe, Eastern Europe, Caucasus, Mediterian regions.

Please contact us and we will try to find a partner in your country.   Your contact at ICJA: youthexchange(at)icja.de

Reimbursement of the travel expenses is calculated according to the flat rate of the ERASMUS + programme. We ask the participants to use sustainable means of transport. Check the distance from your hometown to the venue (Lehrte -Sievershausen) with this tool and see the potential reimbursement in the table below: